Asa no hamon / 朝の波紋 (‘Morning Ripples’, 1952)

Obscure Japanese Film #251

Hideko Takamine

Atsuko (Hideko Takamine) is a young woman living at home with her mother (Hisako Takihana) and nephew Kenichi (Katsumasa Okamoto), whose father was killed in the war and whose mother (Kuniko Miyake) works at a hotel in Hakone. Kenichi has become very attached to a stray dog he adopted but which his mother disapproves of due to its habit of stealing the neighbours’ shoes (the implication is that Kenichi feels rather like a stray dog himself). Atsuko works at a small trading company, where one of her ambitious male colleagues, Kaji (Eiji Okada), has developed a crush on her. One day she meets the less serious Inoda (Ryo Ikebe), who has befriended Kenichi and works for a larger trading company, and the two hit it off. However, Kaji’s jealousy, together with a dispute between the two rival companies over a client, threatens to destroy their burgeoning romance…

Ryo Ikebe

Kuniko Miyake

Distributed by Shintoho, this was the second production by director Heinosuke Gosho’s independent production company Studio 8. It was based on a novel of the same name by Jun Takami (1907-65), whose work also provided the basis for the previously-reviewed Love in the Mountains (1959), a similarly modest and sentimental love story about ordinary people.

Although this was far from star Hideo Takamine’s most interesting role, she and Ryo Ikebe make for an appealing pair as they search the post-war rubble of Asakusa in search of Kenichi after he runs away – Asakusa, most of which had been destroyed by bombs, was evidently not yet fully rebuilt in 1952, the final year of American occupation. Incidentally, Takamine speaks English in several scenes here as the company Atsuko works for does most of its business with foreigners. Her modern, independent personality and ability to do her job well is not always appreciated by her male colleagues, including Kaji. who are at times quite condescending towards her.

Eiji Okada

The film is full of quietly effective little moments, such as when Inoda takes a break on the stairwell with his colleague, looks down to see the cleaning woman on the floor below, then turns to look up at the sun shining through the window; although the influence of Western culture is apparent everywhere in the lives of these characters, such mundane details feel a long way from Hollywood.

Among the supporting cast, the best-known face is that of future Akira Kurosawa favourite Kyoko Kagawa, who appears here briefly as a nun.

The copy I watched was a low-res VHS transfer viewable on YouTube here, but I assume the Japanese DVD is better quality. English subtitles courtesy of Coralsundy can be found here.

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Beyond Love and Hate / 愛と憎しみの彼方へ / Ai to nikushimi no kanata e (1951)

Obscure Japanese Film #237

Toshiro Mifune

Abashiri Prison, Hokkaido. When six convicts escape one rainy night, kindly veteran screw Kubo (Takashi Shimura) is shocked to learn that one of the men was Goro Sakata, also known as Fudo (Toshiro Mifune), a model prisoner who had only six months left to serve. It transpires that, in order to get Fudo to join the escape, the ringleader (Eitaro Ozawa) had spread a lie that his wife, Masae (Mitsuko Mito), was having an affair.

Takashi Shimura

Ryo Ikebe

However, it turns out that she has indeed become very close to a young doctor, Kitahara (Ryo Ikebe), although their relationship has remained platonic thus far – but will Fudo believe this? Possibly not, considering that – after hearing of her husband’s escape – Masae has made herself look guilty as hell by fleeing to the mountains with Kitahara (her reasons for this are never fully explained, perhaps because they make no sense)…

Mitsuko Mito

Distributed by Toho, this production by the Eiga Geijutsu Kyokai (Film Art Association)* was based on a story by Kotaro Samukawa (1908-77) entitled Datsugoku-shu (‘Escaped Prisoner’); this title was no doubt not used here as the same company had only recently released an unrelated picture also starring Toshiro Mifune entitled Datsugoku (1950).

Although director Senkichi Taniguchi brought Akira Kurosawa back on board to help him with the screenplay for this one, the script proves to be little improvement on that of Taniguchi’s previous film, Devil’s Gold. One scene which seems likely to have been a Kurosawa contribution recalls his 1950 picture Scandal, painting journalists in an extremely unfavourable light as dishonourable people who basically print lies for money. Unfortunately, the film feels too long for its slender story, which seems to have been cooked up mostly as an excuse to get Taniguchi and his star Toshiro Mifune back up in the mountains again.

Eitaro Ozawa and Mifune

On a more positive note, the locations are pretty impressive here, with one scene taking place on the side of a steaming volcano, which must have been a dangerous place to shoot in. There’s also another strong score which could only be the work of Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube, while the strong cast do their best with the substandard material foisted upon them. In particular, it’s good to see Takashi Shimura in a more substantial role than usual even if he has to play a prison guard so soft he’s practically a marshmallow.

* According to Kurosawa in his book Something Like an Autobiography, he established the Film Art Association in 1948 together with Taniguchi, their mentor Kajiro Yamamoto, Mikio Naruse and producer Sojiro Motoki. 

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Escape at Dawn / 暁の脱走 / Akatsuki no dasso (1950)

 

Yoshiko Yamaguchi

 

1945. Harumi (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) is a singer in a troupe of female entertainers sent to Manchuria to help the Japanese soldiers forget about their probable imminent deaths. Unfortunately, she quickly attracts the attention of overbearing Lieutenant Narita (Eitaro Ozawa) and is about to be raped by him when Private First Class Mikami (Ryo Ikebe) knocks on the door to deliver a trivial telegram to Narita, allowing Harumi to escape. Harumi and Mikami fall in love, but, when he's wounded in battle, circumstances lead to them being captured together by the Chinese. Mikami is treated with nothing but kindness by his captors, but he’s been completely brainwashed by the Japanese military propaganda machine into thinking that it’s better to die than be taken prisoner…

 

Eitaro Ozawa and Yamaguchi

Produced by Shintoho, the company founded by those who split from Toho after the studio’s big labour dispute of 1947, Escape at Dawn was nevertheless distributed by Toho. Like director Senkichi Taniguchi’s previous film, Jakoman and Tetsu, it was also produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. In this case, the source was a 1947 novel by Taijiro Tamiya (1911-83) entitled Shunpu den (‘The Story of a Prostitute’, not available in English). Tamiya had served in Manchuria during the war (as had Taniguchi) and also written Nikutai no mon (‘The Gate of Flesh’), first filmed in 1948 by Masahiro Makino and later by Seijin Suzuki, Hideo Gosha and others. 

 

Ryo Ikebe

 

Although Tamiya is said to have created the character of Harumi with Yoshiko (later Shirley) Yamaguchi in mind, in the novel she was a Korean prostitute (or ‘comfort woman’), while it’s made very clear in the film that she is not a prostitute, and she has also become Japanese. Apparently, the original version of the screenplay was faithful to the novel on these points, but the content of Japanese films was still being controlled by the occupying Americans, who insisted that changes be made. It’s hard to see how such whitewashing benefitted the Americans, so their decision was presumably just a case of them imposing their own cultural nanny-state ideas of the time about the depiction of ‘immorality’ on screen. An unfortunate knock-on effect was that Harumi’s behaviour in the way she throws herself at Mikami and won’t take no for an answer now appeared extremely odd coming from a Japanese singer rather than a Korean prostitute. According to Stuart Galbraith IV in his book The Emperor and The Wolf, Kurosawa eventually got fed up with the requests for endless rewrites and left Taniguchi to it. He also states that,

…long preproduction, expensive exterior sets, and tangled red tape to secure permission for use of military hardware for filming (machine guns, etc) made it the most expensive Japanese feature to that point.

I’ve read elsewhere that it was also the first post-war Japanese film to feature scenes of Japanese soldiers on the frontlines. In any case, while it’s certainly a compromised vision, the film is at least very well-made and often technically impressive, with cinematographer Akira Mimura winning a Mainichi Film Concours award for his efforts. On the other hand, the essentially simple story of a predictably doomed romance feels overstretched at almost two hours. As Lieutenant Narita and his men are stationed in the desert, the film is very much like a Japanese Foreign Legion movie, and memories of Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper in Morocco (1930) are often brought to mind. There are some surprisingly sensual scenes between stars Yoshiko Yamaguchi and Ryo Ikebe – at one point, she bites his hand hard enough to draw blood, then sucks the wound, which he seems to enjoy. This would have been considered strong stuff in Japan in 1950 and probably helped at the box office.

Seijun Suzuki directed a more faithful version of the original novel in 1965.

Bonus trivia:

Setsuko Wakayama, who plays one of Harumi’s colleagues, had married director Senkichi Taniguchi in 1949, but they divorced in 1956 when he had an affair with actress Kaoru Yachigusa. This adultery scandal harmed Taniguchi’s career greatly – after directing an average of three films a year until 1957, he was subsequently out of work for over two years. When he did return to directing, the quality of the material he was offered was significantly lower than it had been before the scandal.

 

Setsuko Wakayama

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

Daikon to ninjin / 大根と人参 / (‘Radishes and Carrots’, 1965)

 

Chishu Ryu

 

 

 

Yamaki (Chishu Ryu) is a typical middle-aged salaryman who has worked his way up into a comfortable senior management position. He’s been married to Nobuyo (Nobuko Otowa) for 28 years, has four adult daughters and is a creature of habit who rarely deviates from his daily routine. As his younger brother and subordinate co-worker Kosuki (Hiroyuki Nagato) says, he’s ‘as ordinary as radishes and carrots’. 

 

Hiroyuki Nagato and Nobuko Otowa

However, problems begin to pile up – a friend (Kinzo Shin) has cancer but hasn’t been told, Kosuki has embezzled money from the company and is expecting Yamaki to bail him out, and he’s been getting into increasingly aggressive arguments with his best friend, Suzuka (Isao Yamagata), to whose son his youngest daughter (Mariko Kaga) is sngaged. 

 

Isao Yamagata

Mariko Kaga

One day, his family are shocked when he fails to return from work. Unbeknownst to them, he’s gone off to Osaka, where he becomes involved with a cheerful call girl (Miyuki Kuwano) and her eccentric pimp (Daisuke Kato), who also has a Chinese medicine business he wants Yamaki to come in on with him…

 

Miyuki Kuwano

 

Daisuke Kato

This Shochiku comedy features an all-star cast which also includes Ineko Arima, Mariko Okada and Yoko Tsukasa as Yamaki’s other three daughters as well as Ryo Ikebe and Shima Iwashita, although some of these big names (especially Ikebe) are given precious little to do. At the beginning of the film, we’re presented with statistics informing us that over 80, 000 people go missing per year in Japan – a phenomenon which seems an odd topic for comedy. The film originated from an idea by Yasujiro Ozu, no less, who took his inspiration from a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa entitled ‘Yamagamo’, which centres around a quarrel between two old friends, and worked up a treatment with his regular collaborator Kogo Noda which remained unfinished. It seems likely that the theme of a man who goes missing was added later by credited screenwriters Yoshio Shirasaka and Minoru Shibuya, the latter of whom directed the film (his penultimate feature). 

 

Nobuko Otowa and Mariko Okada

 

Shima Iwashita

Although this is actually the first film I’ve seen by Shibuya, he was known for somewhat cynical comedies and it’s clear that Daikon to ninjin  is far closer to his usual style than it is to Ozu’s. In fact, one of the pleasures of the film is seeing its unlikely lead, Chishu Ryu, send up all those ‘perfect father’ roles he played for Ozu over the years. There’s also some surprisingly frank sexual dialogue that would not have been found in an Ozu picture. While Yamaki’s disappearance is not really given sufficient motivation, and the film does seem a rather messy, cobbled-together affair, it remains quite entertaining and likeable, and certainly worth a watch for anyone with an affection for the Japanese actors of the era.

Thanks to A.K. 

 

Snow Country / 雪国 / Yukiguni (1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #198

 

Shima Iwashita

 

Yasunari Kawabata’s novel Snow Country began to appear in fragmented chapters in 1935, but was not published in its final form until 1948. Set in the mid-1930s at a hot spring resort somewhere in the mountains in the west of Japan’s main island, Honshu, it concerns Shimamura, a writer who rather absurdly writes about Western dancing despite never having witnessed a performance. A married man and father with a certain amount of independent wealth, he’s an idler who travels to the resort alone and meets Komako, a young woman whose company the innkeeper arranges as all of the town’s geisha are already booked for a big party. The two are quickly attracted to one another – Komako  falls for him a little too hard, although Shimamura is more reserved and has no intention of leaving his wife. Still, after returning home from his trip, he finds himself unable to forget Komako and returns to see her on two further occasions, by which time she has become a full-fledged geisha. Shimamura also becomes interested in Yoko, a young woman with whom Komako has an uneasy relationship due to their mutual connection to Yukio, a young man dying of tuberculosis who had been Komako’s childhood friend, possibly fiancée, and is now being cared for by Yoko…

 

Isao Kimura

 

Snow Country was first filmed in 1957 by director Shiro Toyoda for Toho with Keiko Kishi as Komako, Ryo Ikebe as Shimamura and Kaoru Yachigusa as Yoko. This Shochiku version directed by Hideo Oba a mere eight years later is by no means a carbon copy. Most obviously, whereas the earlier film was shot in academy ratio black and white and ran 143 minutes, this film is in colour and widescreen and (mercifully) runs 21 minutes shorter. Oba’s reputation is considerably less distinguished than Toyoda’s – probably rightly so – but in some respects his film does manage to improve on the previous one. 

 

 

As played by Keiko Kishi, Komako came across as childish, over-emotional and actually quite annoying, her mood changing by the minute, whereas Shima Iwashita somehow manages to avoid the pitfalls of playing Kawabata’s heroine, making her appeal for Shimamura much more understandable (although why she should be drawn to him so much is less clear). The music is also an improvement – there was way too much of it in Toyoda’s film, and the quality was also poor, but Naozumi Yamamoto’s superior score is used more sparingly and effectively even if it is occasionally on the syrupy side. 

 

 

On the other hand, as Shimamura, Isao Kimura (a respected actor but not a big star), lacks Ryo Ikebe’s charisma and makes little impression, while Toyoda’s snowscapes were more visually arresting even without the benefit of colour and widescreen. The underwritten character of Yoko is a thankless role in both films, but I felt that Kaoru Yachigusa managed it better than Mariko Kaga does here. Incidentally, Chieko Naniwa – who played the head maid in the earlier picture – somehow managed to get herself cast again here, this time playing the blind masseur. 

 

Mariko Kaga

 

Like the novel, Toyoda began his film with Shimamura’s second visit before flashing back to the first, while Oba has opted for a chronological timeline and also added a little narration from Shimamura which works well. Toyoda had found it more convenient to make Shimamura a painter, while Oba retains the character’s occupation as described by Kawabata, but adds a scene with Shimamura’s wife (played by Kaneko Iwasaki), who is only spoken about in both the book and the first film. One aspect that both films have in common is to resolve some of the ambiguity of the novel, in which it’s never really clear whether Shimamura and Komako sleep together or whether Yoko survives the climactic fire – both filmmakers strongly imply that the relationship is consummated and clarify the fate of Yoko. The two films both have their strengths and weaknesses and it will be a matter of personal opinion which one is preferred, but in my view Kawabata’s famous work is not terribly well-suited to film adaptation. 

 

 

In regard to Hideo Oba, a director best-known for his What’s Your Name? trilogy (1953-54), but still obscure to most, I suspect that his previously-reviewed film The Invisible Wall (1958) was a random assignment that did not especially interest him, whereas this was a project he at least put his heart into even if it’s no masterpiece. Like the other four films I’ve seen by him, it’s well made but not particularly inspired, original or individual. It was his sixtieth film out of the 64 he would direct and his final screenplay credit out of 14, as well as his fourth of five films with star Shima Iwashita, and it’s fans of Iwashita who are likely to find this film most rewarding.

Unfortunately, the colour photography did not look its best on the rather low-res copy I watched. 

 

 DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)