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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Kaze no aru michi / 風のある道 / (‘Windy Road’, 1959)

Obscure Japanese Film #240

Izumi Ashikawa

Naoko (Izumi Ashikawa) is a young woman still living at home with her father (Shiro Osaka), mother (Toshiko Yamane) and younger sister Chikako (Mayumi Shimizu). Her older sister Keiko (Mie Kitahara) has just got married, and Naoko is expected to marry wealthy ikebana master Kosuke (Yuji Odaka). However, when she meets Kobayashi (Ryoji Hayama), a teacher of special needs children, she finds herself drawn to him despite the fact that he doesn’t have a pot to piss in…

Ashikawa, Yuji Odaka and Mayumi Shimizu

Ryoji Hayama

Based on an untranslated novel of the same name by future Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata which was published as a serial in a women’s magazine during 1957-58, this Nikkatsu production is the sort of material more usually associated with Daiei Studios. Although the plot hinges on one massively-unlikely coincidence, it’s not as contrived as some that I’ve seen and the film is generally a well-made and enjoyable watch. Having said that, it’s actually the parents who turn out to be the most well-rounded and interesting characters here, which I doubt was the original intention.

Toshiko Yamane and Shiro Osaka

Masayoshi Ikeda’s music is a slightly eccentric mish-mash of styles, but quite effective on the whole, and the rather cheeky audience-teasing climax even features a passage that sounds similar to John Williams’s famous cello piece from Jaws. Another memorable use of music in the film is the counterpoint provided by the upbeat tune which plays on the jukebox while Kosuke is getting Naoko drunk so that he can have his wicked way with her.

Mie Kitahara

It’s surprising to see Mie Kitahara in such a small role here as she was, I think, Nikkatsu’s top female star at the time, but it’s an example of how Japanese studios back then tried to squeeze as much out of the stars they had under contract as possible – Kitahara featured in seven films released in 1959, which was actually taking it easy in comparison to some. This film is, instead, a vehicle for Izumi Ashikawa, who was touted as Japan’s answer to Audrey Hepburn and was a decent if unremarkable actor. She married fellow actor Tatsuya Fuji in 1968 and promptly retired but is still with us at the time of writing at the age of 90.

Ashikawa and Yamane

The director of this film, Katsumi Nishikawa (1918-2010), was especially well-known for films based around female stars, the previously-reviewed A Portrait of Shunkin (1976) being a good example. He worked in a wide variety of genres but never quite made the top rank, although he’s one of the few directors to have his own museum (located in Tottori Prefecture – click here for further information).

The Maid’s Kid / 女中ッ子 / Jochukko (1955)

Obscure Japanese Film #239

Sachiko Hidari

This Nikkatsu production stars Sachiko Hidari – best-known for The Insect Woman (1963) and A Fugitive from the Past (1965) – as Hatsu, a young woman from snowy Akita Prefecture who goes to Tokyo to work as a maid in the house of middle-class couple Kyohei (Shuji Sano) and his wife Umeko (Yukiko Todoroki). 

Shuji Sano

Yukiko Todoroki

At first, Hatsu seems like the stereotypically naive country bumpkin, but she’s also a hard-working, cheerful bundle of energy who turns out, in many ways, to be the perfect maid. The family also includes two young boys who have been left to their own devices by their parents and become totally out of control. When Hatsu develops a strong bond with the younger child, Katsumi (Teruo Iba), he begins to be mocked by his classmates, who call him the ‘son of a maid’...

Teruo Iba

Based on a just-published novel by female author Yuki Shigeko (1900-69), The Maid’s Kid was directed by the underrated Tomotaka Tasaka, who also co-wrote the screenplay together with Katsuya Susaki. Tasaka had a tendency to make long films, and this one is no exception at 142 minutes, but he also had a rare gift for never making them feel overlong. In fact, his readiness to linger on a shot feels quite modern today in the wake of the Slow Cinema movement. He also makes excellent use of real locations and elicits fine performances from all involved – most notably Hidari, of course; it’s difficult to imagine any other actor pulling this role off as well as she does here. It’s the sort of drama that stands or falls on its main performance, and Hatsu could easily have ended up seeming too unconvincingly saintly if played by a less skilled or less suitable star. Other familiar faces among the supporting cast include Chieko Higashiyama, Tanie Kitabayashi and, in one of his earliest film appearances, a pre-cheeky Joe Shishido.

Perhaps the main point of the story is that a person’s social status bears no correlation to their worth as a person; Kyohei and Umeko say they don’t believe in titles like ‘master’ and ‘mistress’, but they act with oblivious selfishness and disregard for Hatsu, at times treating her more like a slave than a servant so that she barely gets a moment’s rest. At one point, she’s even rebuked for not understanding that some people are more important than others. However, another strength of the film is that, although the couple’s hypocrisy is quite evident to the viewer, they are not reduced to one-dimensional villains and are portrayed as basically decent, if misguided, people.

Tasaka’s avoidance of melodrama and intelligent handling of the material is complemented by the work of his regular cinematographer Saburo Isayama as well as by Akira ‘Godzilla’ Ifukube’s fine score. The film was ranked 7^th best of its year by Kinema Junpo magazine, but is less well-known than it deserves today. It was remade in 1976 as Dongurikko by director Katsumi Nishikawa in a version starring the singer Masako Mori.

Thanks to A.K.

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That Complicated Guy / 複雑な彼 / Fukuzatsu no kare (aka ‘A Complicated Man’,1966)

Obscure Japanese Film #238

Jiro Tamiya

This Daiei production stars Jiro Tamiya as Joji Miyagi, who works as a flight attendant for a Japanese airline. One day, en route to San Francisco, he attracts the attention of a passenger, Saeko (Mariko Taka), the daughter of a banker. Saeko asks around about him and discovers that he has an unusual history, having apparently flitted from one random job to another. Although he also has a reputation as a ladies’ man, she is not put off and manages to engineer another meeting. A passionate love affair begins, but is there a darker side to his strange past?

SPOILER BELOW

Mariko Taka

Based on one of those novels by Yukio Mishima which he knocked out for women’s magazines between more serious efforts, it was faithfully adapted for the screen by the not-especially-distinguished Kimiyuki Hasegawa. Mishima had actually based his protagonist very closely on a friend of his, Joji Abe (1937-2019), a yakuza who had worked for Japan Air Lines in the early 1960s before his background came to light and he was forced to leave. Abe later served time in prison before finally quitting the yakuza in 1981, subsequently becoming a writer himself and even acting in a few films. According to Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima by Naoki Inose and Hiroaki Sato,

Mishima had become acquainted with Abe around 1953 when Abe, a member of the yakuza group Ando Gumi [yakuza-turned -actor Noboru Ando’s gang], was working as a bouncer at a gay bar. It was largely because he was impressed by Abe’s handling of a drunken gaijin that Mishima took up boxing when he thought he was ready. He decided he was unfit for the sport and gave it up after about a year, but he kept in touch with Abe.

Mishima admired Abe for what he perceived as his manliness and his readiness to disregard the rules of convention and go his own way. Mishima also knew Jiro Tamiya, who read the book in proof form and pushed to play the part. (Tamiya’s little-known co-star Mariko Taka appeared in half a dozen films for Daiei between 1966-68 before moving to Toei, for whom she mainly did television before getting married in 1974, after which she promptly retired.) Although the film is a fairly lightweight entertainment whose appeal relies partly on the location shooting in San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro, it’s permeated by the author’s far-right ideology and its portrayal of foreigners feels xenophobic.

Mariko Taka

However, director Koji Shima and his DP Akira Uehara – who went on to shoot Man without a Map for Teshigahara and the recently-rediscovered The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (both 1968) – bring some real visual style to the material with subtle lighting and a strong sense of composition and colour. All in all, a more interesting film than I had expected and certainly an effective vehicle for its star, whose athleticism is also put to good use in a few action scenes. 

Tamiya with Eiko Taki

Bonus trivia: According to Japanese Wikipedia, ‘At the age of 16, Joji Abe went to the Netherlands as a cameraman’s assistant, where he once got into a fistfight with Robert Mitchum over a prostitute.’

DVD at Amazon Japan

Thanks to Coralsundy for the English subtitles

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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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Devil’s Gold / 魔の黄金 / Ma no ogon (1950)

Obscure Japanese Film #236

Masayuki Mori 

Iwaki (Masayuki Mori) is a gold prospector who has been in the mountains for 13 years – including the entire war – and finally struck it rich. He had originally gone there after being rejected by Tsukie (Chieko Soma), the woman he loved, for not having enough money. Returning to society, he is at first mocked for his uncouth appearance until people realise he’s carrying a fortune, at which point he becomes the toast of the town.

Chieko Soma

Takashi Shimura

Iwaki’s prospecting partner, Akutsu (Takashi Shimura), had died from exposure not long after they struck gold, so he hires Azuma (Eijiro Tono), a drunk who claims to be a detective, to track down Akutsu’s son. Meanwhile, Tsukie turns up, but she’s now married to a sick architect (Jukichi Uno) and is after Iwaki’s money. The only honest person Iwaki encounters is the maid, Tokiko (Michiko Hoshi), at the hotel he stays at, but she’s involved with a poor fisherman, Ichiro (Ichiro Izawa)...

Eijiro Tono

Jukichi Uno

Ichiro Izawa

This Daiei production was based on a novel by the largely forgotten Shu Sekikawa (1912-87) and was the fourth major feature film to be directed by Senkichi Taniguchi. It was also the first of Taniguchi’s features not to have been co-written by Akira Kurosawa, which may be one reason why it’s not as good as the director’s previous three – I doubt that Kurosawa would have been satisfied with the script of this one, which Taniguchi co-wrote with newcomer Takeo Matsuura.

Michiko Hoshi

Taniguchi was an avid mountaineer and, as in his debut feature Snow Trail (1947), there’s some impressive location shooting in the wintry mountains, but the bulk of the story takes place in an urban setting. As a film, it’s not very characteristic of Japan and the influence of Hollywood is obvious throughout. The score by Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube is effective, but unfortunately this is a story which not only unfolds all too predictably, but relies on a couple of annoyingly implausible coincidences.

Mori before and after his trip to the barber

It’s a surprise to see the usually suave Masayuki Mori in such a rough part, but he rather overdoes it and I couldn’t help wonder if Takashi Shimura – wasted here as he all too often was in a small (and in this case poorly-written) role – might have been a better fit. In fact, much of the acting is too broad for my taste, although the women are a notable exception. I personally think they’re usually better actors than the men on the whole, perhaps because they feel less need to show off, and this seems especially true in Japanese films of the post-war period for some reason. As for the two female stars here, Chieko Soma retired from acting at the age of 40 in 1962 and is presumably deceased, whereas Michiko Hoshi was acting as recently as 2013 and appears to be still with us at the time of writing at the ripe old age of 98.

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I’ll Cry Alone / 帯をとく夏子 / Obi o toku Natsuko (‘Natsuko Unties Her Obi’, 1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #235

Ayako Wakao

Eiji Funakoshi

Natsuko (Ayako Wakao) is a former hot spring geisha who has become the exclusive mistress of company president Sakuma (Eiji Funakoshi in unconvincing old man make-up). He’s under pressure from his sister Kanako (Yumeji Tsukioka) to marry Taeko (Noriko Hodaka) as it will be good for the company and, although he wants to continue seeing Natsuko on the side, Natsuko is not happy with the idea.

Yumeji Tsukioka

Kyoko Enami

A chance of a different future seems to present itself when Sakuma begins a liaison with unlikely window cleaner Sumiko (Kyoko Enami) and Natsuko runs into (literally) the teacher she had a crush on at school, Kenji (Mikijiro Hira). However, he’s now reduced to working as a garage mechanic and unable to keep her in the luxury to which she has become accustomed…

Mikijiro Hira

This Daiei production was based on the ‘Natsuko’ series of stories by Seiichi Funahashi* serialised in the literary magazine Shincho between 1952 and 1961. The first batch was published as a novel entitled Geisha Konatsu in 1952, and Toho had produced two films about Natsuko using that title in 1954/55 with Mariko Okada starring. Funahashi was also the author of the source material for Story of a Blind Woman (also 1965) and the two versions of Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950 and 1968). Unfortunately, as I felt was the case for those stories, this is another that’s unlikely to resonate much with viewers these days.

Although the film has a clear message in favour of female independence, coming as it does after we have watched Natsuko fawning over two undeserving men for most of the film, it feels tacked on almost as an afterthought. Considering the deeply-ingrained sexism of the society that Natsuko is forced to inhabit, a more hard-hitting approach would have been preferable, but the tone is fairly light here, with some scenes simply played for laughs (of which, admittedly, there are a couple). This half-heartedness is probably because the real reason for the film’s existence was simply to provide another vehicle for Ayako Wakao; at the time, much was made of the fact that she wore only kimono in this picture – but, of course, a different kimono for each scene.

Directed by veteran Shigeo Tanaka with the same competent indifference he brought to the earlier Wakao costume-change flick Tokyo Onigiri Girl (1961).

*Sometimes listed as Seiichi Funabashi, but I think that’s incorrect.

DVD at Amazon Japan

Thanks to A.K. and to Coralsundy for the English subtitles

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