The Samurai of Edo / 江戸一寸の虫 / Edo issun no mushi (1955)

Obscure Japanese Film #241

Rentaro Mikuni

In the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate, six people are sentenced to exile for attacking two arrogant British VIPs who had broken etiquette by going through a torii on horseback, beaten a Japanese man who tried to stop them, and entered a shrine without removing their boots. Government official Aoki (Rentaro Mikuni) objects to the sentence and resigns in protest, choosing to become a ronin rather than serve a regime he does not believe in. He shacks up with former prostitute O-Tatsu (Michiyo Aratama) and spends his days lying around drinking sake until one day he’s approached by the Shinchogumi, who want to expel the foreigners from Japan and are seeking his assistance. Reluctant at first, he eventually decides to help and, in the process, meets rich man’s daughter Tae (Michiko Saga), with whom he falls in love…

Michiyo Aratama and Mikuni

This 123-minute period drama is one of the more ambitious productions to have come out of Nikkatsu studios. Adapted by regular Kurosawa collaborator Ryuzo Kikushima together with the obscure Michio Otsuke (whose only other credit appears to be a 1956 movie about kamikaze pilots*), it was based on an untranslated novel of the same name by Minoru Nakano (1901-73) serialised in the Sunday Mainichi magazine in 1955, the same year the film was produced. Nakano does not seem to have been an especially well-regarded writer, although Mikio Naruse made two films in 1935 based on his work, The Actress and The Poet and Wife! Be Like a Rose! His Japanese Wikipedia page states that he co-founded an organisation named the Cultural Patriotic Association during the war years and fell out with his friend the comic actor Roppa Furukawa when the latter criticised Nakano’s support for the war.

Michiyo Aratama

The obvious anti-foreigner sentiment in The Samurai of Edo would have prevented such a film being made during the years of American occupation (which ended in 1952). Although the behaviour of the British men at the beginning of the film is outrageous, it’s an entirely fictional incident as far as I’m aware. The film’s xenophobia, which waxes nostalgic for the days when all the gaijin were kept out of Japan, may well be one reason why it’s not better known.

In regard to the main cast, there’s a strong performance from Rentaro Mikuni in the leading role even if – as was typical for him – he’s perhaps a little too unsympathetic to invest in emotionally. At one point, Mikuni gets to beat the crap out of a mob of samurai single-handed, something which he pulls off very well. Given his famous pursuit of realism – also evident in the scene in which he spits blood out of his mouth – one can only feel sorry for the actors playing his opponents. The female stars fare less well. Michiyo Aratama, who’s probably best-remembered these days for her role in The Human Condition (1959-61), gives a better performance than her doormat role deserves, while Michiko Saga (daughter of Isuzu Yamada and star of The Mad Fox) looks pretty enough but is defeated by her thinly-written part.

Photographed by Kazue Nagatsuka, a veteran from the silent days who later became known for his work with Seijun Suzuki, it’s a good-looking and well-made film which also has a decent score by Yojimbo composer Masaru Sato, even if there’s a little too much of it. There’s also a little too much of the film itself in my view, as I can’t say that the two-hours exactly flew by… Still, if you’re a fan of jidaigeki of this period, I would say check it out if you get the chance as there are certainly some things to enjoy here.

This is actually the first film I’ve seen by director Eisuke Takizawa, who had been an actor in the silent days before turning to directing in 1928; he subsequently made 84 films before passing away in 1965. His only brush with international recognition came with a Golden Bear nomination at the 1958 Berlin Film Festival for Byakuya no yojo (aka The Temptress and The Monk). Anyway, based on the evidence of The Samurai of Edo, he may be worth investigating further as its flaws are mostly in the material itself rather than the handling of it, which is more than merely competent throughout.

The original title references the Japanese saying 一寸の虫にも五分の魂 (issun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashii), which can be translated as ‘even little worms have souls’, ‘a tiny insect also has a spirit’, etc, or – more literally – ‘even an insect measuring 1 sun (about 3 cm) has a soul (heart) measuring half that size, or 5 bu (about 1.5 cm)’ [Google AI Overview etymology] or ‘it is said that even an insect less than an inch in size has a soul equal to half its body length’ [imidas.jp translated by Google]. 

* Nake, Nihon kokumin: Saigo no sentoki (‘Cry, Japanese People: The Last Fighter Plane’)

Film at Amazon Prime Japan (no English subtitles)

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Brand of Evil / 悪の紋章 / Aku no monsho (1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #229

Tsutomu Yamazaki

 

Kikuchi (Tsutomu Yamazaki, the kidnapper from High and Low) is a police detective investigating the murder of a young woman. The trail leads to company boss Shibata (Rokko Toura), but he suddenly finds himself falsely accused of accepting bribes from a drug dealer and is kicked out of the police force and sent to prison for two years. After his release, he manages to find work with a private detective agency on condition that he drops any notion of trying to clear his name. He agrees, then promptly sets about trying to clear his name, during the course of which he finds himself involved with Setsuko (Michiyo Aratama), a young woman he sees falling victim to a pickpocket on the subway…

 

Michiyo Aratama

This co-production between Toho and Takarazuka Eiga was based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Shinobu Hashimoto, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sakae Hirosawa and the director, Hiromichi Horikawa. Horikawa and Hashimoto had previously collaborated on The Lost Alibi (1960) and Shiro to kuro (1963), two similarly dark and twisty crime thrillers, and both had begun their film careers under the tutelage of Kurosawa. The master’s influence is apparent here in the way certain scenes are shot and the use of weather to heighten atmosphere. In fact, the moody high-contrast cinematography comes courtesy of Yuzuru Aizawa, who had shot The Bad Sleep Well (1960). Another asset is a strong jazz score by one of Japan’s top composers, Toshiro Mayuzumi, while the excellent cast also includes Kyoko ‘Woman in the Dunes’ Kishida, Keiji Sada and, wasted in a tiny role as the head of the detective agency, Takashi Shimura. 

 

Hashimoto’s view of the world tended towards the misanthropic, and none of the characters in Brand of Evil are terribly nice. In fact, one of the most memorable scenes involves the supposed hero torturing a hapless yakuza stooge to the strains of a Strauss waltz (‘Rosen aus dem Süden’), which reminded me of the way Tarantino used ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ in Reservoir Dogs, although Tarantino certainly took it to another level. 

 

Keiji Sada and Tsutomu Yamazaki

In my view, the film is slightly less effective than The Lost Alibi or Shiro to kuro because the combination of the lack of a sympathetic protagonist combined with a rather convoluted plot and slightly excessive running time of around two hours and eleven minutes makes it hard to feel emotionally invested in the story all the way to the end. It’s also hard to forgive the demeaning portrayal of a disabled character, Setsuko’s friend Tsuyako, played by Toshiko Yabuki. 

 

Rokko Toura

 

The Hidden Profile / 風の視線 / Kaze no shisen (‘Gaze of the Wind’, 1963)

Obscure Japanese Film #181

Shima Iwashita

 

Keisuke Sonoi

 

Natsui (Keisuke Sonoi) is a photographer who has just entered into an arranged marriage with Chikako (Shima Iwashita). Their honeymoon is an awkward flop, but during the trip Natsui discovers the body of a suicide victim, grabs his camera and snaps away with ghoulish gusto.  He later uses the photos in an exhibition which is a big hit. 

 

Michiyo Aratama

 

Akira Yamanouchi

Keiji Sada

Natsui is actually in love with Ayako (Michiyo Aratama), but not only is she married to the mostly-absent Shigetaka (Akira Yamanouchi), but she’s in love with Kuze (Keiji Sada), with whom she’s having an affair, and who is also married and having an affair with a clingy bar hostess. It gradually emerges that Ayako was the one who arranged the marriage between Natsui and Chikako, partly to get Natsui to stop pestering her, but also because she knew that Chikako was having an affair with Shigetaka …

 

 

Perhaps it was somebody’s sly joke that this adaptation of a 1961 novel by Japan’s best-selling mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto begins with the discovery of a body but turns out to be a romantic drama rather than a crime story. A Shochiku production directed by Yoshiro Kawazu, who made the previously-reviewed Eyes of a Child (1955), it also features a rather stiff cameo by Seicho Matsumoto himself as a writer Kuze runs into in a bar. 

 

Seicho Matsumoto and Keiji Sada

 

The plot features a couple of unlikely and fairly pointless coincidences and in this case the level of suspense is mild to say the least. Despite a promising cast, nobody gets a chance to do their best work here, while composer Chuji Kinoshita simply seizes the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Toshiro Mayuzumi and Sei Ikeno and experiment with a musical saw for no good reason. A story concerning such a bizarre web of intertwined relationships might have worked as a farcical black comedy, but the film takes itself far too seriously and plods leadenly on to its contrived conclusion, making it hard to regard it as anything other than a competent failure. 

 

 

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles) 

English subtitles courtesy of Coralsundy can be found here.

 

Structure of Hate / 黒い画集 第二話 寒流 / Kuroi gashu dainibu: Kanryu (1961)

Obscure Japanese Film #178

Ryo Ikebe

 

Okino (Ryo Ikebe) is a hard-working Tokyo bank employee who is entrusted with a promotion to manager of the Ikebukuro branch by his boss, Kuwayama (Akihiko Hirata, the one-eyed scientist from the original Godzilla). However, Okino is disliked by his wife (Michiko Araki) and two children because he’s so focused on his work that he largely ignores them. Soon after starting his new job, he’s approached for a bank loan by restaurant owner Nami (Michiyo Aratama) and a mutual attraction soon leads to an affair. As such a relationship with a customer of the bank could cost Okino his job, he must be especially careful to keep it a secret – something that becomes increasingly difficult when Kuwayama meets Nami and decides to pursue her himself. Then Okino begins to wonder if Nami has just been using him for her financial benefit…

 

Michiyo Aratama

 

The Japanese title of this Toho production translates as ‘Black Art Book Episode 2: Cold Current’ as ‘Cold Current’ was the title of Seicho Matsumoto’s story first serialised in the Weekly Asahi in 1959 before being included in the collection Black Art Book 2, published later that year.* Harenchi Gakuen helpfully explains on Filmarks.com that, ‘The cold current refers to the side streams and those who have been demoted.’ This makes perfect sense as Okino certainly finds himself sidelined in this film version by screenwriter Tokuhei Wakao and director Hideo Suzuki. Unfortunately, the original story is not available in English, but apparently the ending was changed significantly. It’s a little different from your typical Seicho Matsumoto tale – there’s not even a murder – and the plot went off in directions I failed to anticipate, but did enjoy, culminating in a highly unusual ending in which we are deliberately kept in the dark about exactly what happened.

 

Akihiko Hirata

 

It’s a refreshingly unsentimental film which takes a pretty dim view of human nature. Having said that, the two main characters are not entirely despicable. It’s common in Japan for men to put work before family as Okino does here, and although Nami is the business-minded, pragmatic type, she’s put in a difficult position with which it’s hard not to sympathise, while it’s also clear that their relationship begins to trouble her conscience. In this role, the underrated Michiyo Aratama delivers the film’s best performance and it’s good to see her show what she could do when given a meatier part than the typical ‘nice girl’ roles she’s better-known for in films such as The Human Condition. 

 

Jun Hamamura

 

Seiji Miyaguchi

The film has some wonderful cameos by familiar faces such as Jun Hamamura as a doctor who looks like he could use some of his own medicine, Seiji Miyaguchi as a private detective who looks like he hasn’t had a client for years, Tetsuro Tanba as a yakuza boss and, best of all, Takashi Shimura as a shark-like banking bigwig who exudes an aura of self-confidence and power and is appropriately trailed everywhere by his silent, pilot-fish-like mistress (Machiko Kitagawa). 

 

Tetsuro Tanba and friends

 

Takashi Shimura

This is the only film I’ve seen so far by director Hideo Suzuki (1916-2002), who worked as a contract director first for Daiei (1947-52), then Shintoho (1953) and finally Toho (1954-67) before finishing his career in TV. Although he is said to have had a limited amount of choice in the films he was assigned to direct and he worked in a variety of genres, he is apparently highly regarded by some for his thrillers and suspense movies, and on the evidence of Structure of Hate, I, for one, am keen to see more, especially as there’s more to this film than mere suspense. It’s also a portrait of a sick society in which people have become foolishly obsessed with position and material wealth while forgetting what’s really important in life. 

 

Michiyo Aratama

 

UPDATE: I've since watched Suzuki's Woman of Design (Sono basho ni onna arite, 1962), an equally unsentimental picture about women struggling to compete in the male-dominated advertising industry. It shows a similar disregard for the usual conventions of movie plotting, but for me it was a film to be admired rather than enjoyed as I found it a tad boring. It's also burdened with an odd score by composer Sei Ikeno which might have worked if used more sparingly but is repeated ad infinitum even over many of the dialogue scenes.
 

*Toho had made Black Art Book: An Employee’s Confession aka The Lost Alibi the previous year and Black Art Book: A Certain Disaster aka Death on the Mountain earlier in 1961. Structure of Hate was the final entry in the series.

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

All About Marriage / 結婚のすべて / Kekkon no subete (1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #51

Michiyo Aratama and Izumi Yukimura

Kihachi Okamoto’s directorial debut is a light comedy which begins with a shot of a young couple kissing in a boat on a beach before the camera pulls back to reveal it’s merely a scene being shot for a movie. For the next few minutes, the film continues in faux-documentary style with some narration by an uncredited Keiju Kobayashi before settling down to focus on the main story. It’s a tale of two contrasting sisters – Yasuko (Izumi Yukimura), a very modern young woman who has fully embraced the new Westernised culture of post-war Japan, and Keiko (Michiyo Aratama), her older sister, who is always seen in Japanese dress and represents more traditional and conservative values. However, Michiyo is married to Saburo (Ken Uehara), a staid university professor who takes her somewhat for granted, as a result of which she indulges in a flirtation with Koga (Tatsuya Mihashi), the editor of a woman’s magazine. Meanwhile, Yasuko falls for a student, Hiroshi (Shinji Yamada), before discovering that he’s two-timing her with carefree young hedonist Mariko (Reiko Dan). Disillusioned, she finally takes up instead with Akira (Tatsuya Nakadai), a young man who works for her father’s company and of whom her father approves as a potential future husband.

Ken Uehara

Although handed such routine material for his first assignment as director, Okamoto invests it with considerable wit and invention along the way and certainly puts his unique stamp upon it, filling out the supporting cast with a variety of eccentric characters, several of whom verge on caricature. At times, he seems to intend a satire of a consumerist society in thrall to America and embracing everything from chewing gum to bad Elvis pastiches. In any case, his film is not only an enjoyable entertainment, but an interesting cultural artefact and I’d love to see it again with subtitles (there’s a lot of dialogue).

Toshiro Mifune

 

 

Among the colourful cast, Toshiro Mifune appears for a few seconds in an uncredited cameo as an acting teacher, while Tatsuya Nakadai’s part is larger but still brief – he first appears 52 minutes in and then is not seen again until the final couple of minutes. Pre-Human Condition, Nakadai was not yet a major star, but must have gained some popularity in the wake of his role for Masaki Kobayashi in Black River (1957) as he’s featured quite prominently in the trailer. It’s Reiko Dan who steals the show, though – given an attention-grabbing entrance dancing down the street to a rock and roll tune, she’s vivacity on legs. 

 

Tatsuya Nakadai and Izumi Yukimura

 

 

 

Reiko Dan

 

Watched without subtitles. 

 

You may also enjoy reading Robin Gatto’s review.  

DVD at Amazon Japan