M.R. Dowsing's Blog

Obscure Japanese Film #264

Takahiro Tamura

1928.‘One-Shot’ Ginzo (Takahiro Tamura), a matagi, or bearhunter, returns to his home village of Ani in Akita Prefecture afterhaving spent 10 years in the penal colony on Sakhalin Island forfighting. He learns that his son was killed in action in Siberiaseven years earlier, and that most of the villagers now work at thenew mine. Ginzo’s daughter-in-law, Kimi (Junko Sakurada), isliving as a widow with his grandson, Ippei (Hiroshi Miyata).

Junko Sakurada

Whena bear kills one of the villagers, Ginzo sets out to kill it andsucceeds. However, shortly after this, a bear cub turns up lookingfor its mother. Ginzo, believing that he has committed a sin againstthe god of the mountains by making the cub an orphan, resolves togive up hunting and raise the cub to make amends. Ippei is delightedto have a furry new playmate, but of course cute little bears turninto big scary ones and one day they will have to release it backinto the wild…

Hiroshi Miyata and friend

Thisco-production between Toei and the independent Kobushi Productionswas made to capitalise on the success of director Toshio Goto’searlier film The Old Bear Hunter (1982), although this film isaimed more specifically at the family market, with considerable focuson the boy and the bear cub. There are even two montage sequences ofthe two frolicking together and the bear getting into variousmischief over which a female singer croons a cheesy ballad abouthuman-animal friendship. The film is not exactly subtle, then, but itis quite well-made and entertaining, and some of the animal andnature footage is certainly impressive even if the filmmakersoccasionally resort to using a fake bear for the more difficultshots (there is some pretty amazing ursine actingat the end, though…)

Aswith Goto’s other wilderness movies, I would question how much thewelfare of the animals was considered here, and I can’t helpfeeling there’s some hypocrisy in promoting such a film aswholesome family entertainment when some of the various bears usedmust have had an unpleasant time in certain scenes . Still, I supposethis reflects our generally inconsistent attitude to animals, whicheasily changes depending on convenience; in this film, bears are bothmonstrous killers and cute anthropomorphised playmates as the storydemands.

It’sperhaps worth saying a few words about this film’s star, TakahiroTamura (1928-2006), whose father was none other than TsumasaburoBando, the sword-fighting star of silent films whose career continueduntil his untimely death in 1953 at the age of 51. Apparently, Bandodied owing money to Shochiku, the studio which had him undercontract, and Tamura was urged to follow in his father’s footstepsas a means of repaying his debts, which he agreed to do. However, herefused to be marketed as Tsumasaburo Bando mark II and resistedappearing in period dramas for the most part. He worked for Shochikufrom 1953-1963, becoming a regular in Keisuke Kinoshita’s films,then went freelance. Career highlights include his role as ShintaroKatsu’s sidekick in The Hoodlum Soldier series (1965-68),Seisaku in Yasuzo Masumura’s Seisaku’s Wife (1965)opposite Ayako Wakao, the air force commander in Tora! Tora! Tora!(1970), and the father in the Oscar-nominated Muddy River(1981). I don’t think Tamura ever became a box office draw, but hewas a serious, hard-working actor who managed to avoid typecastingand successfully took on a wide range of roles. His performance inthis film may be a tad broad at times, but on the whole he makes agood fist of it and, though Ginzo initially appears unlikeably gruffand aggressive, Tamura gradually reveals the heart ofgold that’s concealed beneath the surface.

Anote on the title:

イタズ(itazu)means ‘bear’ in the matagi language, but as this would notbe understood by most Japanese people, the original title alsocontains the standard Japanese word for ‘bear’, 熊(kuma).

Englishsubtitles at Open Subtitles

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Obscure Japanese Film #263

Chikage Ogi and Tojuro Sakata

1702, the 15th year of the Genroku era. After 47 ronin – former retainers of Lord Asano Naganori – avenge their lord by attacking and killing Kira Yoshinaka in Edo, they wait for their punishment to be handed down, knowing they will likely be sentenced to commit seppuku. The leader, Lord Kuranosuke Oishi (Koshiro Matsumoto VIII), has noticed that one of his men, Isogai (Tojuro Sakata), seems especially untroubled by the situation and wonders whether his bravado is genuine. Isogai was engaged to be married to koto player Omino (Chikage Ogi), who had no idea that he had been planning to take part in such an action. She’s desperate to speak to him, but the ronin are not allowed visitors, so she puts pressure on her uncle, Den’emon (Ganjiro Nakamura), a member of the clan, to intervene…

Koshiro Matsumoto VIII
Ganjiro Nakamura

This Toho production was based on Oishi saigo no ichinichi (‘Oishi’s Last Day’), part of the Genroku Chushingura series of kabuki plays written by Seika Mayama in the 1930s which revolved around the famous Ako Incident.* Understandably, then, the cast consists largely of actors from the kabuki theatre, although their performances here are not stagy and are, in fact, perfectly appropriate for the cinematic medium. Running a mere 53 minutes, it was the sixth film in the ‘Toho Diamond’ series, which were stand-alone B-movies adapted from various literary works with running times of around an hour.

It was also the third film directed by Hiromichi Horikawa, a former assistant to Kurosawa who made some good films but perhaps never lived up to his early promise. Here, obviously working on a tight budget, he omits the attack completely and the film mainly consists of people talking on tatami. However, thanks in part to Horikawa’s precise blocking and effective camera placement, it nevertheless makes for compelling drama, and Masaru Sato’s subtle, unintrusive score is also a definite asset. There’s also a nice line in dry humour, perhaps provided by another Kurosawa collaborator, screenwriter Ryuzo Kikushima, who co-wrote the screenplay with Tokuhei Wakao – at one point, the men realise that none of them know the correct etiquette for committing seppuku as they’ve never seen anyone actually do it, while when Omino attempts to disguise herself as a man in order to gain access to her fiancé, Oishi takes one look at her and says something to the effect of, ‘You wouldn’t happen to be a woman by any chance, would you?’ For me at least, this modest little film is a gem which deserves a higher rating than the 5/10 it currently has on IMDb.




Ogi in feminine and masculine guises

*This series of plays had already been the basis for Kenji Mizoguchi’s two-part film of 1941-2.

BONUS TRIVIA: The film led to the marriage of actors Tojuro Sakata and Chikage Ogi, the latter of whom later became a politician. 

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Obscure Japanese Film #262

Ayako Wakao

with Takashi Shimura

Kyoko (Ayako Wakao) is a young model who allows herself to be photographed nude in order to pay her mentally-ill mother’s hospital bills. She subsequently attracts the attention of elderly film studio head Kudo (Takashi Shimura), who offers her a movie deal. He also wants to marry her, but to her he’s just a father figure; nevertheless, she’s devastated when he dies. She then goes on to have relationships with a young reporter (Masahiko Tsugawa) and a university professor (Eiji Funakoshi) before marrying a baseball star (Jun Fujimaki), and later a bespectacled, pipe-smoking writer (Takahiro Tamura). Kyoko’s relationships never seem to work out as each of the men is smitten by her looks rather than the person within. Failing to find the emotional fulfilment she craves, she becomes increasingly unstable and develops an addiction to sleeping pills…

Masahiko Tsugawa

Eiji Funakoshi

Jun Fujimaki

Takahiro Tamura

ThisDaiei production was based on a 1966 novel by Ayako Sono (1931-2025),a right-wing Christian whose work also provided the basis forMasahiro Shinoda’s Epitaph to My Love (1961) and a few otherfilms; it was adapted by Sugako Hashida (1925-2021), probablyJapan’s most successful female writer of TV drama. The story wasbased on the life of Marilyn Monroe, and it’s not hard to figure out which characters are Japanese versions of Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Admittedly, the idea of Ayako Wakao in effect playingMarilyn Monroe is intriguing if only for its weirdness, but the filmproves to be less interesting than it sounds and Wakao’s breathyperformance is not one of her best. The problem is that she’srequired to be extremely sensitive and over-emotional in practicallyevery scene, which soon becomes tiresome, while there’s too muchrepetition in seeing her stumble from one unsuitable relationship toanother, rendering it largely ineffective as drama. It does, however,provide plenty of opportunities to display the star in an endlessarray of outfits, not to mention sporting every variety of haircutyou can imagine bar an actual skinhead or peroxide job. In otherwords, it’s another of Daiei’s Ayako Wakao fashion parade /costume-change pics, which seemed to be a bankable formula for themat the time.

Itmay seem surprising that this film was directed by the leftistTadashi Imai, but he’d been struggling to find film work and stuckin the doldrums of television for the previous couple of years. WhenJoan Mellen – who had published a feminist biography of Monroe in1973 – questioned him about it in her interview with Imai for her1975 book Voices from the Japanese Cinema,he had this to say:

“Iwas asked to make the film by Daiei. ...I am one of those Japanesedirectors who cannot afford to make only the films I want to make, soI accepted. In some respects I enjoyed making it, but it is not afilm I really want to talk about. … Directors in Japan are not verywealthy and often they have to do films they don’t especiallylike.”

Indeed,there was nothing I could see that marked the film out as a TadashiImai picture, but at least it enabled him to resume his cinemacareer even if his best work was behind him.

Anote on the title:

AlthoughWhen the Cookie Crumbles seems to be the official Englishtitle, the English expression is more usually 'that's the way thecookie crumbles', which is used in a similar way to 'c'est la vie'when you have to accept the inevitable. The Japanese title translatesmore literally as 'the moment the sugar candy breaks', which I thinkdoes not mean quite the same thing, and it’s pretty clear that the‘sugar candy’ in question is Kyoko / Marilyn.

Watchedwithout subtitles.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Obscure Japanese Film #261

Ayako Wakao

The Heian era. Kiyohime (AyakoWakao) is the feisty daughter of a village headman. Out hunting a foxone day, she fires an arrow at it, but hits a handsome young monk,Anchin (Raizo Ichikawa), in the arm (presumably there was nocappuccino around in those days for her to spill on him). Apparentlyconfusing the first aid procedure for arrow wounds with the one forsnake bites, she sucks his wound and spits out the blood, thenbandages it and invites him back to her place to recuperate. As amonk who takes his religion seriously, he spurns her company becausehe wants to avoid temptation; she takes this as an insult. To getrevenge – in a literally ‘steamy’ scene made much of at thetime – she follows him to a hot spring in which he’s taking amoonlit bath, strips off and makes as if to seduce him, then laughsin his face when he begins to give in to temptation. He runs off andconfesses to a priest who advises him to go and stand under awaterfall until he stops thinking about her (is this the origin ofthe cold shower treatment?). Meanwhile, she decides that she reallyloves him after all, but of course everyone else in the movie isdetermined to keep them apart…

Raizo Ichikawa

ThisDaiei production was based on a legend about the ancient Buddhisttemple of Dojoji in Wakayama Prefecture. The legend had been thebasis for numerous Noh, kabuki and bunraku (puppet) plays, butthe sole writing credit here goes to screenwriter Hideo Oguni, afrequent Kurosawa collaborator. Unfortunately, in this case he cameup with such a corny load of old tosh that the only reasonable way toatone for it would have been to commit hara kiri. Even at a mere85-minutes, it feels incredibly drawn-out and plods on predictably ata glacial pace before finally reaching its climax, in which eitherAyako Wakao turned into a giant snake, or I had begun to hallucinateas a result of brain-rot brought on by the previous 75 minutes, I’mreally not sure which.

Thiswas the tenth of 19 films in which Ayako Wakao and Raizo Ichikawa –two of Daiei’s biggest stars – appeared together, and they wererumoured to have been lovers at the time. I don’t know about that,but they were certainly very flirty in a joint magazine interviewquoted at this Japanese Raizo Ichikawa fan blog. In any case, one canonly pity them here for being lumbered with such unconvincingcharacters and risible dialogue. Director Koji Shima throws in acouple of his trademark storms and makes it all look quite pretty inan artificial sort of way, but this one’s a lost cause, although –not too surprisingly, perhaps – it was a box office success at thetime. All in all, it’s the sort of story that works much better inKihachiro Kawamoto’s 20-minute puppet film version of 1976 entitledDojoji, which you can watch on YouTube.

Incidentally,anyone visiting Wakayama Prefecture can visit Dojoji, where there isa picture scroll depicting the story of Anchin and Kiyohime, andrequest a monk to tell the story (with the option of English, Ithink). For more info, visit Dojoji’s English web page.

At the time of writing, masochists can watch the film with English subs on YouTube. 

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Obscure Japanese Film #260

Tsutomu Yamazaki
Ko Nishimura
Daisuke Kato
Akira Kubo

Iwao (Tsutomu Yamazaki, thekidnapper from Kurosawa’s High and Low) heads a gang ofrobbers comprised of Shimoyama (Ko Nishimura), the muscle; Konishi(Daisuke Kato), the getaway driver; Kumagai (Akira Kubo), thesafecracker, and himself as mastermind. After making a huge scoreof over 40 million yen, they agree to split the loot equally fourways and leave it untouched for six months until the heat has cooled.However, it turns out that there’s little honour among thieves, andthe men soon begin to fall out, partly due to greed, but also becauseof lust for Iwao’s girlfriend and accomplice, Rumiko (Reiko Dan)...

Reiko Dan

ThisToho production was based on a 1964 novel entitled Ore no yumi wa…(‘My Dream Is…’) by Norio Nanjo (1908-2004), who had alsosupplied the source material for Masaki Kobayashi’s TheInheritance (1962) and Umetsugu Inoue’s The Third ShadowWarrior (1963). Like those stories, this one takes a ratherjaundiced view of human nature, something which Nanjo seems to haveshared with this film’s writer and director, Hideo Suzuki, who hadmade the similarly misanthropic Structure of Hate in 1961.

Reiko Dan

Thisis noir at its noirest, with dark shadows dominating the visualdesign throughout. Unusually for a Japanese film of its time, it’sshot in academy ratio, so whenever we get a close-up (which isoften), the actor’s faces completely fill the screen. The film notonly looks striking, but also sounds great due to Masaru Sato’scool jazz score. The only element which I found a littledisappointing was the plot – once you know where it’s going(which is quite early on), everything unfolds all too predictably.

Thankfully,the excellent cast help to keep the interest with the usuallyvivacious Reiko Dan successfully cast against type as a cold andgloomy moll, and – looking like the sinister love-child of PeterLorre and Christopher Lee – the diminutive Ko Nishimura managing tobe totally convincing as a man who could kill you with his bare hands(and probably would given half a chance).

Thanks to A.K.
DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Obscure Japanese Film # 259

Eijiro Tono and Yoko Minakaze

Aftera man trying to find oil in order to revive the fortunes of his dyingseaside town commits suicide, the locals blame Fumiko (YokoMinakaze), a young woman who had rejected his sudden offer ofmarriage. Fumiko lives with her father, Tokinosuke (Eijiro Tono,great), who has been going to pieces since his wife ran off withanother man. Ostracised by the townsfolk, Fumiko heads towards thesea with the intention of ending it all, but is spotted by anitinerant oil worker (Shuji Sano) who prevents her from going throughwith it. He and four other men have been left stranded since thesuicide of their boss and Fumiko is moved by their kindness andrelates to their outside status.

Shuji Sano
Sachiko Hidari, Minakaze and Yoko Kozono

Itemerges that Fumiko has two female friends, Yoko (Yoko Kozono/Kosono)and Taniko (Sachiko Hidari), with whom she has made a suicide pact,each carrying a deadly pill in a locket around their necks. Yoko’sreason for being miserable is that she’s the daughter of aconcubine (Sadako Sawamura), while Taniko’s is that she’sphysically disabled and has to walk with a crutch. The women haveagreed that they will all commit suicide together. Meanwhile, thestranded workers are debating whether to flee the town and escape thedebts they’ve incurred or stick it out, hoping that a long-awaitedtelegram will arrive telling them to come to a new oil field. ThenKurama (Yunosuke Ito), an embezzler on the run from the police,arrives and claims to be an oil surveyor who intends to restart thedrilling…

Yunosuke Ito

ThisShintoho production has an unusual story which is a creation of RinzoShiina (1911-73), who wrote the original screenplay and had writtenthe novel on which director Heinosuke Gosho’s Where Chimneys areSeen (1953) had been based. However, there are certainsimilarities to Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1951),which I strongly suspect influenced this film. With all the talk ofsuicide, it first appears to be a rather bleak drama, but graduallytransforms into a comedy. It’s not like any other Gosho film I’veseen, and I found it quite engaging and charming in the way it takesdelight in continually subverting our expectations. For example, whenFumiko’s wealthy aunt who has been turning down her father’srequests for money appears, we expect that she’ll be a terribleharridan – especially as she’s played by Eiko Miyoshi – butthis proves not to be quite the case.

Eiko Miyoshi

It’ssurprising to see Yoko Minakaze (1930-2007) in the lead role. Shedoesn’t look like a film star and, indeed, wasn’t one, but forsome mysterious reason I felt her lack of star quality somehow workedin this film’s favour. Coming from the theatre, she enjoyed a longcareer on stage as well as screens both big and small, but this maywell be her most major role in movies.

It’sworth noting that screenwriter Rinzo Shiina had converted toChristianity in 1950 and it’s easy to see how his beliefsinfluenced this work. It’s also perhaps the reason composer ToshiroMayuzumi used choral music for his score, although this is oneelement I didn’t particularly care for. In most respects, though,this film is a gem and it’s also beautifully shot by Joji Ohara,who won a Mainichi Film Concours Award for Best Cinematography forhis pains, making this a film crying out for a good quality release.

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Obscure Japanese Film #258

Tomoko Ogawa

ThisToei production is a sequel to The Shogun and His Mistressesof the same year, and I recommend reading my review of that filmfirst, even though this one has an entirely separate story.

It’snow 1786 and the 10th shogun, Ieharu (Masao Mishima), isin power. Ochisa (Tomoko Ogawa), the adopted daughter of Lord Abe(Eitaro Ozawa), is sent to serve the shogun at Edo Castle, where herolder sister Oshino (Hiroko Sakuramachi) is one of the shogun’sconcubines. It’s not long before Ochisa is forced into the sameposition, but the sisters try not to become enemies despite thebitchy machinations of the other women around them. However, when theshogun suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, Ochisa finds herselfsent to a nunnery with the other concubines, where they’re expectedto spend the rest of their lives praying for Ieharu’s soul. Thehead nun (Chieko Hagashiyama) ensures that the women are cut off fromthe outside world with the result that one goes mad, another turns tolesbianism and a third starts an affair with a priest – but whatwill become of Ochisa?

Ogawa with Masao Mishima

Droppingthe anthology structure of the first film and released just threemonths later, it’s no surprise that this rushed-into-production sequel is weaker,especially as it relies on an inexperienced actor to carry it – inher first leading role, 18-year-old Tomoko Ogawa was a last-minutereplacement for Yoshiko Sakuma (who reportedly objected to what shesaw as an increasing sexual emphasis, although the finished productis probably tamer than the first). As if this were not challengingenough, Ochisa is not a terribly interesting character in the firstplace, although she does eventually reveal another dimension towardsthe end and Ogawa does a fair job under the circumstances. However,although her performance was well-received and Toei planned to starher in further similar pictures, disappointing box office led them toinsist that she do nude scenes from then on, causing her to quitfilms and turn to singing, where she found considerable success.Incidentally, Yoshiko Sakuma was not the only one to be replaced –shooting began with Michiko Saga as the older sister, but sheapparently got in a strop due to too much waiting around and leftafter three days, forcing Toei to replace her with HirokoSakuramachi.

Hiroko Sakuramachi

Castingshenanigans aside, this is still a decent movie, and one which alsobenefits from the splendidly villainous presence of Ko Nishimura, whoinstigates an impressively bloody sword fight with multiple opponentsat the film’s climax. Composer Sei Ikeno’s score might have beenbetter suited to a horror movie, but it’s not ineffective, whiledirector Sadao Nakajima (who also made the previous film) is adept atextracting the maximum amount of drama from every scene. The originalscreenplay by Takeo Kunihiro and Takehiro Nakajima might seem toosimilar to the original at first, but goes off in some interestingdirections before finally revealing its surprising theme of anindividual rebelling against the oppressive feudal system. Unusually,in this case, the turning worm is no put-upon samurai, but aconcubine who has finally had enough of having no say in her owndestiny.

Ko Nishimura

DVD at Toei Video (no English subtitles)

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Obscure Japanese Film #257

Taiji Tonoyama

This late film by the prolificwriter-director Kaneto Shindo (best known for his 1964 picture,Onibaba) tells the story of Taiji Tonoyama, an actor whoappeared in most of Shindo’s films before his death at the age of73 in 1989. Tonoyama was a short, prematurely bald Yoda lookalikewith sad, baggy eyes, so he was usually to be found among thesupporting casts of the many films he appeared in, in roles ofvarious sizes – the only leading roles played by him that I’maware of were in two Shindo films: The Naked Island (1960) andthe previously-reviewed Libido (1967).

Naoto Takenaka

Shindorecreates scenes from the actor’s life with Naoto Takenaka asTonoyama, placing the focus on his relationships with his first wife,Asako (Hideko Yoshida), and second wife, Kimie (Keiko Oginome), whomhe meets when he is 36 and still married to Asako and Kimie is 17 andworking as a waitress. Tonoyama was an unlikely womaniser and we alsosee him picking up various barmaids with apparent ease whilesimultaneously fighting a lifelong battle with the demon drink.Shindo intersperses these dramatisations with scenes from the filmsthey made together and a straight-to-camera interview with NobukoOtowa, Shindo’s mistress and eventual wife who frequently actedalongside Tonoyama (Otowa died in 1994, so Shindo must have beensitting on this for at least 6 years). Towards the end, there is alsosome very brief interview footage with fellow directors ShoheiImamura, Hiromichi Horikawa and Seijiro Koyama.

Nobuko Otowa

Shindohad already written a book about Tonoyama, who had also written anumber of books himself, notably a 1966 volume whose title translatesas The Irresponsible Ramblings of a Third-Rate Actor(unsurprisingly, these have notmade it into English).WhileI’ve long been a fan of Tonoyama myself, I’m not really sure thatShindo has done his memory a lot of favours by making this film.AlthoughNaoto Takenaka’sperformance seems a pretty good Tonoyama impression for the firstcouple of minutes, he goes on to deliver every line with exactly thesame throaty, drawn-out intonation, and it gets old fast. Thefilm is also way too long at over two hours – a one-hourdocumentary would have been far more preferable in my view,especially as the end result feels so superficial and sentimental,withthe repetitive piano and violin music-by-numbers score deliveringthe coup de grâce towhat is easily the weakest Shindo film I’ve seen.

Keiko Oginome

Anote on the title:

Thefilm is frequently listed as ‘By Player’ in English, but I’msure this was never an official release title. It’s alsomeaningless, and I can only assume that somebody somewhere came upwith ‘bit player’ as a translation for ‘sanmon yakusha’ andsomehow managed to confuse ‘bit’ with ‘by’.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

English subtitles at Open Subtitles

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Obscure Japanese Film #256

Akira Takarada

A group of five criminals headedby Utsugi (Jun Tazaki) plan to steal diamonds worth 360 million yenin an armed robbery in Kobe, but when they make the attempt, theydiscover that another gang has had the same idea, and a shoot-outensues. The other gang, headed by Koshiba (Makoto Sato), make offwith the diamonds, but Koshiba is wounded by a gunshot in theprocess. They hide out in an abandoned garage while one gang member,Jiro (Tetsuo Ishidate), goes off to kidnap a young woman, Tsunako(Yuki Nakagawa), threatening to kill her unless her surgeon father(Takashi Shimura) operates on Koshiba. Meanwhile, both Utsugi’sgang and the police are on their trail, and private detective Kuroki(Akira Takarada) is following Koshiba’s girlfriend, Rie (KumiMizuno), in the hopes of getting the diamonds and selling them to theinsurance company…

Kumi Mizuno

Likethe previously-reviewed Brand of Evil from the same year, thisis a co-production between Takarazuka Eiga and Toho. It’s alsoa similarly noir-ish vision featuring shadowy, high-contrastcinematography with lots of skewed angles, a cool jazz score andmostly unsympathetic characters. Strangely, this one also evokesmemories of Reservoir Dogs, in this case because of itsheist-gone-awry plot in which one gang member is shot and has to holeup in an abandoned building, together with a climax in whicheveryone’s pointing guns at each other. It seems highly unlikelythat Tarantino could have seen either film before making his debut,though, so this is probably all pure coincidence.

Makoto Sato

Inmy view, this is a more satisfying film than Brand as it has aless convoluted plot and doesn’t outstay its welcome. It looksgreat thanks to cameraman Shinsaku Uno (who also shot KihachiOkamoto’s splendid Aa bakudan), while jazz guitarist ShungoSawada’s score sounds pretty good even if it’s not especiallymemorable. The acting is decent although a couple of the actorsplaying the more junior gang members go a bit OTT. I found KumiMizuno especially effective playing a woman not about to let any manget the better of her, and it’s great to see Takashi Shimura notwasted for a change – here, he has a substantial supporting part asthe doctor losing confidence in his abilities because age is catchingup with him. However, the top-billed star is Akira Takarada, who madehis name playing the hero in the original Godzilla (1954). Hewas never very highly-rated as an actor, but actually acquits himselfquite well cast against type as the private eye who’s little betterthan the criminals he’s pursuing. Makoto Sato, whose ownlimitations were sometimes exposed when playing a leading role, alsogives a strong performance as the worst of the bad guys.

Takashi Shimura

Thedirector, Jun Fukuda, was to become best-known for his monster moviessuch as Ebirah, Terror of the Deep (1966) and Godzilla vs.Mechagodzilla (1974) but is known to have despised the genre andseen it merely as a way to make a living. Working from an efficientoriginal screenplay by Ei Ogawa and Moriyuki Mafuji, in this film hemakes excellent use of real locations in a similar way to Hideo Goshain movies such as Cash Calls Hell (1966), suggesting thatFukuda’s career could have gone quite differently had he startedout a few years earlier.

Originallyscreened as a double feature with the previously-reviewed Naked Executive.

Watchedwith dodgy subtitles.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Obscure Japanese Film #255

Shin Saburi

Narasaki(Shin Saburi) has married Katsuko (Setsuko Hara), the widow of asoldier who got killed fighting alongside Narasaki in the Philippinesand who left her with a son, Hiroshi. However, it was a marriage ofconvenience and there’s been little intimacy between the two –her husband is suffering from PTSD and suppressing his emotions,so he often comes across as a bit of a cold fish. One of Narasaki’sfriends is Ohira (Toshiro Mifune), a less damaged veteran who findshimself attracted to Katsuko. Emotionally starved as she is, shefinds herself falling for him despite her moral qualms...

Setsuko Hara

ThisToho production was based on a story entitled Kono ju-nen(‘These 10 Years’) by Hidemi Kon (1903-84), who had himself beenstationed in the Philippines during the war. It was adapted byToshiro Ide, a notable screenwriter who worked for many of Japan’stop directors, but is perhaps best-known for his frequentcollaborations with Mikio Naruse, whose films this one somewhatresembles. On this occasion, however, the director is none other thanstar actor Shin Saburi, whom I’ve often criticised in previousreviews for being wooden. After seeing this film, he’s definitelygone up in my estimation as, not only does he give a betterperformance than usual – indeed, there are times you could almostswear that he’s alive – but he also does a highly creditable jobof direction. This was actually the 11th of 14 films hedirected, though I’ve yet to see any of the others.

Toshiro Mifune

Saburialso gets excellent performances out of the rest of the cast,although considering that – apart from Setsuko Hara and ToshiroMifune – this also includes Keiju Kobayashi, Murasaki Fujima andKaoru Yachigusa, they may not have needed too much help. Mifune mightseem an unlikely romantic lead but, reunited with Hara after theirsuccessful pairing in Tokyo Sweetheart (1952), he again showsthat he was quite capable of giving a good performance in anon-aggressive role. However, top-billed Hara is the real star of theshow here and for her part she demonstrates a wide range of subtleexpressions that her work for Ozu rarely allowed her.

Setsuko Hara

Asidefrom being a strong love story for grown-ups which offers nofairy-tale endings or easy solutions, the film is also an insightfulportrait of post-war Japanese life, the story taking place inflashbacks over a period of 10 years from the end of the war untilwhat was then the present day. We witness the lives of the variouscharacters change greatly during this period, especially in economicterms – immediately after the war, they’re all livinghand-to-mouth, but some prove able to adapt to new circumstances verysuccessfully and become quite wealthy within just a few years, whileothers (like Narasaki) are, to their detriment, unable to let go ofthe past and seem bewildered by the sudden dramatic social changes.Meanwhile, the Americans are a constant background presencethroughout – jeeps rumble through the streets and military jets flyover, startling everyone with their sudden noise. Such sights arecommon in films of the period, and this one in particular shows thatthe war and its aftermath continued to affect the lives of everyonein the country in all sorts of subtle ways.

Apleasant surprise, then, and a film well-worth seeking out.

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