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Almost a caricature of the classic backstage story of the stars who battle even though “they’re made for each other” — this time with duo legends Isuzu Yamada and Kazuo Hasegawa — but with an emotional restraint rare even for Japanese films of the period.Read More »
Another sprawling Nakahira drama detailing the love life of several members of a middle class family.Read More »
boblipton@IMDB wrote:
At a popular resort during the Edo Period, a man is murdered. As everyone gossips about the matter and waits for the samurai in charge of the investigation to do something, honeymooning Hideko Takamine takes time out to solve the crime.Read More »
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Sumako, a country girl, becomes a great actress with the help of Hogetsu, a scholar who brought some of European realism to the Japan’s stage. The relationship leads to the end of his marriage and the breakup of his Arts Society.Read More »
Shusei Tokuda’s starkly realistic novel about a poor girl pressed into becoming a geisha was forcefully adapted by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). When Ginko (Nobuko Otowa, Shindo’s wife) falls in love with one of her clients, she is handily rebuffed by the young man’s wealthy family, and left to wander from geisha house to geisha house.Read More »
Umekichi, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, feels obliged to help her lover Furusawa when he asks to stay with her after becoming bankrupt and leaving his wife. However her younger sister Omocha tells her she is wasting her time and money on a loser. She thinks that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them. Omocha therefore tries various schemes to get rid of Furusawa, and set themselves up with better patrons.Read More »
PLOT:
Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father’s debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.Read More »
Quote:
A bit like The Downfall of Osen (Orizuru Osen, 1935), this film centers on a woman who’s a cat’s paw for a gang involved in shady dealings. Okichi, played by Yamada Isuzu, is pulling scams for the sake of her lover. But she falls out with the gang and takes pity on one of the young men whom she victimizes.
I can’t comment on the film after only one viewing, and the fact that Mizoguchi is credited after Takashima suggests that he may have had little input. Still, it’s another tale of a woman who sacrifices herself for more or less unworthy men. Miss Okichi also has some typically Mizoguchian scenes that dwell on chiaroscuro melancholy. Much of the film takes place at night, and this strategy reinforces the somber atmosphere. There are some remarkably opaque long shots and one moment that includes Okichi turning toward the camera in a sort of plaintive challenge.Read More »
David Bordwell wrote:
A bit like The Downfall of Osen (Orizuru Osen, 1935), this film centers on a woman who’s a cat’s paw for a gang involved in shady dealings. Okichi, played by Yamada Isuzu, is pulling scams for the sake of her lover. But she falls out with the gang and takes pity on one of the young men whom she victimizes.Read More »