Obscure Japanese Film #102
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| Reiko Nanjo |
Shinobu Hashimoto (1918-2018) had one of the most impressive track records in screenwriting, including as it did not just many of Kurosawa’s best films, but also other cast-iron classics such as Hara Kiri (1962) and Sword of Doom (1966), together with a long list of other excellent pictures. In 1973, he formed his own production company, making two films in collaboration with Toho – Castle of Sand (1974) and Mount Hakkoda (1977) – both of which were big hits. These were followed by Village of Eight Gravestones (1977) for Shochiku, an even bigger hit, so when he and his production company asked Toho to co-produce Lake of Illusions, which he would write and direct, he was in an excellent position to get what he wanted and was given a free hand. As Hashimoto had also directed two previous features, they must have felt the risk to be minimal, and their optimism was such that the film was planned as Toho’s 50th anniversary celebration work. However, they probably failed to take into account that many of Hashimoto’s previous screenplays had been written in collaboration with others (which he himself always maintained was the best way) or under the firm guiding hand of top directors such as Yoshitaro Nomura, Masaki Kobayashi, Tadashi Imai, Kihachi Okamoto and others. Furthermore, Hashimoto was an eccentric, as anyone who reads his book Compound Cinematics – Akira Kurosawa and I can easily see.
Daisuke Ryu
The genesis of Lake of Illusions is downright peculiar. As Castle of Sand had featured a lot of walking and Mount Hakkoda a lot of marching, he figured that it was time for a film with a lot of jogging. According to Japanese Wikipedia, Hashimoto also wanted to develop a story which included three elements – an image of a woman in traditional Japanese dress plunging a knife into a man; a statue of Kannon, the 11-faced Bodhisattva of mercy, located near Lake Biwa; and, randomly, computer technology. He spent two years working on the screenplay, but even he wasn’t convinced that he had successfully combined the three elements when the film went into production.
Reiko Nanjo
The central character is Michiko, a 22-year-old woman who works in a weird theme hotel where she has to dress in character as Oichi, a woman from the past who came to an unfortunate end (played by Keiko Takahashi in a flashback sequence). Michiko has no interest in history and is doing the job purely for the money and planning to leave as soon as she has reached her savings goal. Her main duties are actually providing baths and sex to wealthy businessmen, something she finds tolerable as long as she’s ‘Oichi’ and not Michiko. She adopts a stray dog, whom she dubs ‘Shiro’, and goes for long runs with him along the shores of Lake Biwa on her days off, meeting a mysterious flute player (Daisuke Ryu) along the way. When Shiro is found dead from a head wound, she becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer and getting revenge…
Hashimoto held open auditions for the part of Michiko. Out of 1,627 applicants, a young model named Reiko Nanjo was chosen, seemingly for her good looks, athleticism and willingness to disrobe. Unfortunately, she had no real acting experience, and Hashimoto was asking too much of a novice to carry the weight of such a huge part in a major production. The film features endless scenes of Nanjo jogging – she reportedly ran 4,500 km while playing Michiko – as well as constant close-ups of her, usually wearing the same sullen expression. Nanjo deserves respect for her hard work but, in her hands, Michiko comes across as a bit of a brainless bimbo, which was presumably not the intention. Perhaps a more experienced director could have provided better guidance, but here she seems over-exposed and under-directed, and she received poor reviews and few offers of work once the film was released. However, Akira Kurosawa (perhaps taking pity on Nanjo) gave her a small part in Ran, and she subsequently enjoyed a decade of modest success as an actress in TV dramas before quitting the entertainment industry and vanishing from public life.
Daisuke Ryu
On its release, the film was so badly received that Toho pulled it from cinemas two weeks after release and effectively buried it. Shinobu Hashimoto’s magic touch had deserted him and he suddenly found himself persona non grata with the film studios. It’s not difficult to see their point of view – Lake of Illusions has a terrible script consisting of several disparate elements clumsily cobbled together, even relying on two unlikely coincidences to patch up the deficiencies in its plot, like using sticking plaster to cover a wound when a transplant is called for. It also feels insanely long at over 2 hours and 40 minutes, while the ending, which is akin to being catapulted into a completely different movie, has to be seen to be believed.
Keiko Takahashi
With no TV broadcasts or VHS release, Lake of Illusions was virtually impossible to see until its eventual DVD release in 2003. It had come to be regarded as a legendarily bad film, but since then it has acquired a small cult following and has its defenders. While it does offer some incidental pleasures along the way, such as a chance to see the scenery around Lake Biwa, and a subtle music score by Yasushi Akutagawa, in my opinion the film ultimately deserves its reputation as Hashimoto’s grand folly, and his own verdict as expressed in Compound Cinematics is equally damning.
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