A Descendant of Urashima Taro / 浦島太郎の後裔 / Urashima Taro no koei (1946)

Obscure Japanese Film #82

Hideko Takamine

Taro Urashima is the mythical hero of a Japanese folk tale who rode on the back of a turtle which took him to an underwater palace where he stayed for what he thought was a few days before returning home to find that centuries had passed. The hero of this Toho production, Goro Urashima (Susumu Fujita, the star of Kurosawa’s Sanshiro Sagata films), is a former soldier newly returned to Japan after being stranded for 18 months on a south seas island. Sporting an impressive beard, he yearns for peace and democracy now that the war is over. When he is interviewed on the radio about his experiences, he tells of how the island natives would sometimes gather and let out a haunting, mournful cry which moved him deeply. He demonstrates the sound over the airwaves, after which it resonates with Japan’s workers, who begin imitating it. 

Susumu Fujita

 

Meanwhile, young reporter Akiko (Hideko Takamine) – accused of having ‘pretty face, empty head’ by her boss (Haruko Sugimura) – spots an opportunity and tracks down Urashima for an interview. Hoping to milk the story for as long as possible, she suggests that he perform his cry from the roof of the Diet building for several days, and she runs a series of articles in which she claims that he is a descendant of Taro Urashima. Goro’s wail becomes a rallying call and the workers build him up into their champion. But soon he is being unwittingly used by a fake democratic group called the Japanese Happiness Party, who actually intend to exploit the workers mercilessly once they get into power…

 

With its obvious pro-democracy, beware-false-prophets message, this is the sort of film that the occupying Americans strongly encouraged after the war. In fact, the story owes much to the Frank Capra movies Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Meet John Doe (1941), but here it’s all a bit po-faced. This type of material was clearly not director Mikio Naruse’s forte and it remains a real anomaly among his films – he did not repeat the error and only collaborated with screenwriter Yasutaro Yagi on one further occasion for the more enjoyable comedy Conduct Report of Professor Ishinaka (1950).

 

Apart from Hideko Takamine, it’s hard to find much to like about this film – Fujita seems uncomfortable in his role, while the music score is quite poor, perhaps explaining why it would be the final of just three screen credits for composer Toshio Yamada. Worse still, Goro’s cry sounds like a bad Tarzan impression and, unfortunately, it soon becomes grating and is repeated ad infinitum. 

 
 

Evening Stream / 夜の流れ / Yoru no nagare (aka The Lovelorn Geisha, 1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #75

 

Isuzu Yamada

Sonoda (Takashi Shimura) is a wealthy businessman who owns a restaurant run by Aya (Isuzu Yamada), whom he has repeatedly tried and failed to seduce. She’s actually having an affair with the cook, Igarashi (Tatsuya Mihashi), who has a foot injury as a result of being forced to work barefoot when he was a prisoner-of-war in Siberia. Aya’s daughter, Miyako (Yoko Tsukasa), is also in love with Igarashi but unaware of her mother’s affair. The restaurant has several geisha who entertain the guests. These include Kintaro (Yaeko Mizutani), who tends to get drunk a lot and is eventually raped in a car while intoxicated; Beniko (Etsuko Ichihara), who regularly attempts suicide for obscure reasons; and Masae (Mitsuko Kusabue), who has been left by her husband, Nozaki (Kazuo Kitamura), and is now in a relationship with a salesman (Akira Takarada, the heroic diver from the original Godzilla), although Nizaki keeps turning up to sponge off her.

 

Takashi Shimura

 

This Toho production is unusual in being a collaboration between two directors – Mikio Naruse and Yuzo Kawashima – and it seems to have come about as a result of Kawashima’s admiration for his senior colleague. Reportedly, Naruse directed most of the interiors in the studio, while Kawashima handled the scenes shot on location, and it certainly looks that way. As might be expected from this approach, there is a certain unevenness of tone. Kawashima’s opening scene set at a swimming pool suggests we’re in for a moronic sex comedy, but the film becomes more serious and interesting as it progresses. 

 

Tatsuya Mihashi

 

The geisha portrayed here are not the high-class prostitutes of period dramas, but simply female companions and entertainers for hire, which is what geisha had become by the time this film was made (it’s set in what was then the present day). Nevertheless, it’s surprising to see geisha emulating westerners on their days off. They ride around in American sports cars, go to jazz bars and drink highballs, and it’s made clear that their shamisen skills are somewhat lacking compared to the geisha of the past. In fact, their materialism, pursuit of pleasure and lack of spirituality are almost akin to the ‘sun tribe’ youths seen in films such as Crazed Fruit (1956). However, although these women seem pretty vacuous at first, they do become more sympathetic as the various sub-plots unfold, and Kintaro’s rebellion is gratifying when it comes. 

 

Kazuo Kitamura and Akira Takarada

 

The film was based on an original screenplay by frequent Naruse collaborator Toshiro Ide, and Zenzo Matsuyama, soon to become a director himself. It seems that Ide wrote the Naruse portions, while Matsuyama wrote Kawashima’s scenes. Each director also worked with a different cinematographer. I suspect that Naruse might have had an undeveloped, set-bound script by Ide on his hands and suggested that Kawashima add some exteriors showing what the women get up to on their days off (though this is pure speculation on my part). In any case, I felt that the Naruse scenes were stronger, though this might be partly due to the fact that he directed all the sections featuring Isuzu Yamada, who is exceptional. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another actor burst into real tears as suddenly as she does here. Yoko Tsukasa is equally convincing as her daughter, while Yaeko Mizutani proves herself the master of the drunk scene. The music score by Ichiro Saito features jazz guitar quite prominently and has not dated well, but on the whole this often maligned film rewards the patient viewer and is by no means the failure its reputation suggests. 

 

Yoko Tsukasa

 

Isuzu Yamada

Yaeko Mizutani

Dancing Girl / 舞姫 / Maihime (1951)

Obscure Japanese Film #74

Mariko Okada

  

Namiko (Mieko Takamine) is a ballet teacher married to university prof Yagi (So Yamamura). They have two grown children – Shinako (Mariko Okada), who aspires to be a ballet dancer like her mother, and her brother Takao (Akihiko Katayama). However, the marriage was an arranged one, and Namiko still has feelings for former sweetheart Takehara (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi), whom she still sees regularly, although their relationship is platonic. This puts an increasing strain on the marriage while Shinako and Takao look on uneasily. Meanwhile, Shinako’s disillusionment deepens when she finds herself powerless to help either Kayama – her former ballet teacher whose career has ended due to a war wound (Heihachiro Okawa) – or Tomoko (Reiko Otani), a fellow student reduced to working as a stripper in an effort to help her sick lover. 

Mieko Takamine and Hiroshi Nihonyanagi

 

This Toho production is based on a novel published the same year by Yasunari Kawabata, who in 1968 became the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel is not regarded as one of his major works and has yet to be translated into English (although there have been translations in German and Spanish) and it should be noted that Kawabata also wrote a famous story entitled The Dancing Girl of Izu, which is entirely unrelated to this one. The screenplay was written by Kaneto Shindo, who may be the most prolific screenwriter of all time with over 200 credits, but is best known as the director of Onibaba, Kuroneko and The Naked Island. He appears to have made a few changes to the original, some of which may be explained by the fact that films still had to be approved by the occupying Americans in 1951 (presumably not too difficult in this case as Dancing Girl promotes Western culture while also including some anti-war dialogue). The platonic nature of the relationship between Namiko and Takehara appears to have been the same in the original, but the Buddhist theme of the novel is largely absent and there is no mention of Takao’s flirtation with communism or Takehara being married. Unfortunately, Shindo chose to write a new scene in which Shinako visits her former ballet teacher on his deathbed – this scene is incredibly corny and easily the worst bit in the film. 

 

So Yamamura and Mieko Takamine

This sequence aside, director Mikio Naruse does a fine job, appropriately staging many scenes so that his characters have their backs to each other, which serves to emphasize their emotional distance. Ichiro Saito’s Western-style, string-laden score should perhaps have been used more sparingly, although it could be argued that it matches the maudlin tone of the film. The cast are solid across the board and it’s interesting to see Mariko Okada in her film debut even if she was obviously doubled for most of the ballet sequences. Okada would go on to rival Ayako Wakao as one of Japan’s top film actresses and, although her performance here may not quite have the subtlety of her later ones, she acquits herself pretty well in a major role that must have been daunting for an 18-year-old who had been signed as a ‘Toho New Face’ just 20 days before this film went into production.

The Way of Drama / 芝居道 / Shibaido (1944)

Obscure Japanese Film #71

Kazuo Hasegawa

Set during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, this Toho production stars Kazuo Hasegawa as Shinzo, a young stage actor in Osaka whose newfound popularity playing military heroes has gone to his head. He has a sweetheart, Hanaryu (Isuzu Yamada), a shamisen player he is planning to marry, but his master, Heikichi (Roppa Furukawa), thinks he has become too arrogant and will never succeed in the long-term if he allows himself to be distracted by marriage. Heikichi decides to ask Hanaryu to break off the relationship for Shinzo’s own good… 

Isuzu Yamada

 

In his film The Song Lantern from the previous year, director Mikio Naruse had managed to avoid making military propaganda, but by this point it was a case of either spread the message the authorities wanted to put across or don’t make a movie. The Way of Drama was adapted by the prolific Toshio Yasumi based on a novel by Koen Hasegawa (1904-77). It’s unclear whether the propaganda aspect was present in the original, but the film certainly contains a rather obvious message about the importance of self-sacrifice. The character of Heikichi, the theatre director, is portrayed as a very noble man because he puts on plays about heroic soldiers and keeps ticket prices low so that as many people as possible will learn that the goal of destroying the enemy is far more important than one’s own paltry little life. Of course, this is unlikely to strike a chord with many viewers nowadays, but if we can ignore this aspect of the film, there are some pleasures to be found in the fine performances of Hasegawa and Yamada. Incidentally, the one scene in which Hasegawa is really bad is the opening scene in the theatre, where he plays a mortally wounded soldier delivering his patriotic last words as he expires – could Hasegawa and Naruse have been subtly taking the rise out of the military here?

Hasegawa and Eitaro Shindo

 

The supporting cast is also strong and features Takashi Shimura as a rival theatre director, Ranko Hanai as Heikichi’s cheerful daughter and Eitaro Shindo as a seasoned elder thespian. Directed by Naruse, it goes without saying that The Way of Drama is well-made, although working under the constraints and with the limited resources that he was at the time, it is obviously not one of his best. 

Takashi Shimura, Roppa Furukawa and Ranko Hanai

 

The Song Lantern / 歌行燈 / Uta andon (1943)

Obscure Japanese Film #56

 

Isuzu Yamada

This film adaptation of a Japanese literary classic tells the story of Kitahachi (Shotaro Hanayagi), the son of a famous Noh actor, Genzaburo Onchi (Ichijiro Oya). Kitahachi is angered by stories of 'So-zan' (Masao Murata), a provincial amateur who has been bragging that he can perform Noh songs better than 'those guys in Tokyo.' He decides to pay a visit to So-zan to find out how good he really is. So-zan is a blind masseur turned restaurant owner said to be keeping three concubines, the thought of which Kitahachi finds distasteful and only angers him further. Unimpressed by So-zan's singing, he takes him down a peg or two, humiliating the braggart by beating out the correct rhythm to the song, causing So-zan to falter in his performance and lose face. Kitahachi follows this victory by openly insulting him, then walks out. So-zan sends O-Sode  (Isuzu Yamada) – the young woman who had ushered him in to see So-zan and whom Kitahachi takes to be one of the concubines – to go after Kitahachi and bring him back, but he rebuffs her. The following day, he learns that So-zan has committed suicide. When Kitahachi's father hears what has transpired, he is furious and disowns Kitahachi, who is soon reduced to becoming a wandering samisen player. One day, he encounters O-Sode, whom he has by this time learned was actually So-zan's daughter. (This is significant as he would never have been so harsh towards her father had he known this at the time.) She is now working as a geisha but is in danger of losing her job as she's unable to play the shamisen despite having made a great effort to learn the instrument. Stricken by guilt, Kitahachi sees a way of making amends and decides to help her. As she clearly has no talent for the shamisen, he teaches her a Noh dance instead…

 

Shotaro Hanayagi

The Song Lantern was based on a 1910 novella by Kyoka Izumi (1873-1939). Izumi was held in high esteem by a number of more famous Japanese writers, including Yukio Mishima, Junichiro Tanizaki and Yasunari Kawabata, while his work has formed the basis of films by directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Masahiro Shinoda and Kon Ichikawa. The original, which has been published in English as ‘A Song by Lantern Light’, is regarded as one of its author’s masterworks. Unravelling in a clever flashback structure which flits between the past and present in a way that is ahead of its time, and containing some nice humour mixed in with the tragedy, it stands up very well indeed. This film version uses a more conventional narrative structure but otherwise remains remarkably faithful for the most part, although the ending is less enigmatic and more upbeat. Another difference is that So-zan reappears as a ghost in the film – though, like the ghost of Banquo in Macbeth, it’s left ambiguous as to whether this is a ‘real’ ghost or, a hallucination brought on by a guilty conscience. Many of Izumi’s stories do feature ghosts, but not ‘A Song by Lantern Light’.

 

Masao Murata

The screenplay was written by Mantaro Kubota (1889-1963), a writer of novels, plays and haiku with four screenplay credits, three of which are for adaptations of Izumi stories. His screenplay for The Song Lantern was apparently finished in 1940, but when production of the film was delayed, it was instead staged at Tokyo’s Meijiza theatre in July of that year with Shotaro Hanayagi (star of the film version) in the lead. Hanayagi (1894-1965), who somewhat resembles Kazuo Hasegawa, was a kabuki actor specialising in female roles who had starred in a stage version of Izumi’s novel Nihonbashi (Bridge of Japan) back in 1915. He only made a handful of films, most notable of which was his leading role for Kenji Mizoguchi in The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), but he went on to be awarded the title of ‘Living National Treasure’.

 

Isuzu Yamada

Another cast member with an affinity for the work of Kyoka Izumi is Isuzu Yamada, a striking, skilful and versatile actress who will always be remembered for her ‘Lady Macbeth’ in Throne of Blood, but deserves to be remembered for lot more. She had also starred in Mizoguchi’s The Downfall of Osen (1934), and Masahiro Makino’s two-part Onna Keizu (1942), all of which were based on Izumi stories.

13 years into his directorial career at this point, Mikio Naruse was not yet considered one of the grand masters of Japanese cinema, but certainly had an excellent reputation as a maker of intelligent, sensitive, literary dramas. As this film was made during the war years, Naruse would have been working with limited resources and interference from the authorities, so it is to his credit that he managed to avoid making military propaganda and was able to produce such a high quality film under these circumstances. In my opinion, this is one Naruse film which deserves a little more love. Although some lengthy scenes of Noh performance may stretch the patience of some viewers, it has a strong story which draws you in, fine performances and some notably well-shot sequences, such as the ones in which Kitahachi teaches O-Mie the Noh dance in the forest. As far as I can tell, the film is only available in a rather faded VHS transfer – a pity, as it’s certainly worthy of restoration.

The Song Lantern was remade in 1960 by Teinosuke Kinugasa (working from a new script), who cast Raizo Ichikawa and Fujiko Yamamoto in the leads.

The original story can be found in In Light of Shadows: More Gothic Tales by Izumi Kyoka translated by Charles Shiro Inouye (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)