Last Days of the Samurai / 琴の爪 / Koto no tsume (‘The Koto Pick’, 1957)

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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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)

A Night to Remember / その夜は忘れない / Sono yoru wa wasurenai (1962)

Obscure Japanese Film #79

Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao

 

This Daiei production stars Jiro Tamiya as Kyosuke, a Tokyo journalist who is also something of a playboy. He’s sent on assignment to Hiroshima to cover the memorial ceremony for the 17th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb. He begins by visiting the museum, where he’s disturbed by the grisly artefacts on display and seems to hear the voices of the dead whispering to him. He also interviews some A-bomb survivors; one, a young woman with a disfigured face, is disconcertingly cheerful and has long accepted her condition, but Kyosuke nevertheless feels uncomfortable in her presence and has trouble looking her in the face. In fact, he’s so affected by what he sees and hears that, when a carefree young Japanese couple speed past him on a motorbike, he finds himself glaring at them resentfully.

 

Hoping to take his mind off the bomb, Kyosuke meets up with an old friend, Kikuta (Keizo Kawasaki), who takes him to a bar, where he is introduced to the manageress, Akiko (Ayako Wakao). Kyosuke and Akiko are attracted to each other, but she seems uncommonly keen to avoid the topic of the bomb…

 

Kozaburo Yoshimura (1911-2000) was a highly respected director of serious dramas and literary adaptations (his 1951 version of The Tale of Genji is especially good). Here, he’s working from an original screenplay by Yoko Mizuki, Kosei Shirai and Tokuhei Wakao (no relation to Ayako as far as I’m aware). One of the film’s strengths is that it’s mostly shot on location, and veteran cinematographer Joji Ohara makes it look great. The fact that Yoshimura used several real-life A-bomb survivors in the cast also lends authenticity. 

What really carries the film, however, is the performances of the two leads. In my view, among male Japanese film stars of the ‘60s, Jiro Tamiya was one of the best actors, and he puts across the conflicted feelings of Kyosuke very well here. Ayako Wakao has less screen time despite being top-billed, and first appears 24 minutes in; of course, when she finally arrives, she delivers her usual flawless performance. 

 

The film, on the other hand, does have its flaws – Ikuma Dan’s music is often intrusive and unsubtle, while the story relies far too much on coincidence (Kyosuke has chance meetings with people that he knows on no less than three occasions!). However, the sensitive acting of Tamiya and Wakao makes this a genuinely moving experience.