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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When the Cookie Crumbles / 砂糖菓子が壊れるとき / Satogashi ga kowareru toki (1967)

Obscure Japanese Film #262

Ayako Wakao

with Takashi Shimura

Kyoko (Ayako Wakao) is a young model who allows herself to be photographed nude in order to pay her mentally-ill mother’s hospital bills. She subsequently attracts the attention of elderly film studio head Kudo (Takashi Shimura), who offers her a movie deal. He also wants to marry her, but to her he’s just a father figure; nevertheless, she’s devastated when he dies. She then goes on to have relationships with a young reporter (Masahiko Tsugawa) and a university professor (Eiji Funakoshi) before marrying a baseball star (Jun Fujimaki), and later a bespectacled, pipe-smoking writer (Takahiro Tamura). Kyoko’s relationships never seem to work out as each of the men is smitten by her looks rather than the person within. Failing to find the emotional fulfilment she craves, she becomes increasingly unstable and develops an addiction to sleeping pills…

Masahiko Tsugawa

Eiji Funakoshi

Jun Fujimaki

Takahiro Tamura

This Daiei production was based on a 1966 novel by Ayako Sono (1931-2025), a right-wing Christian whose work also provided the basis for Masahiro Shinoda’s Epitaph to My Love (1961) and a few other films; it was adapted by Sugako Hashida (1925-2021), probably Japan’s most successful female writer of TV drama. The story was based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, and it’s not hard to figure out which characters are Japanese versions of Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Admittedly, the idea of Ayako Wakao in effect playing Marilyn Monroe is intriguing if only for its weirdness, but the film proves to be less interesting than it sounds and Wakao’s breathy performance is not one of her best. The problem is that she’s required to be extremely sensitive and over-emotional in practically every scene, which soon becomes tiresome, while there’s too much repetition in seeing her stumble from one unsuitable relationship to another, rendering it largely ineffective as drama. It does, however, provide plenty of opportunities to display the star in an endless array of outfits, not to mention sporting every variety of haircut you can imagine bar an actual skinhead or peroxide job. In other words, it’s another of Daiei’s Ayako Wakao fashion parade / costume-change pics, which seemed to be a bankable formula for them at the time.

It may seem surprising that this film was directed by the leftist Tadashi Imai, but he’d been struggling to find film work and stuck in the doldrums of television for the previous couple of years. When Joan Mellen – who had published a feminist biography of Monroe in 1973 – questioned him about it in her interview with Imai for her 1975 book Voices from the Japanese Cinema, he had this to say:

“I was asked to make the film by Daiei. ...I am one of those Japanese directors who cannot afford to make only the films I want to make, so I accepted. In some respects I enjoyed making it, but it is not a film I really want to talk about. … Directors in Japan are not very wealthy and often they have to do films they don’t especially like.”

Indeed, there was nothing I could see that marked the film out as a Tadashi Imai picture, but at least it enabled him to resume his cinema career even if his best work was behind him.

A note on the title:

Although When the Cookie Crumbles seems to be the official English title, the English expression is more usually 'that's the way the cookie crumbles', which is used in a similar way to 'c'est la vie' when you have to accept the inevitable. The Japanese title translates more literally as 'the moment the sugar candy breaks', which I think does not mean quite the same thing, and it’s pretty clear that the ‘sugar candy’ in question is Kyoko / Marilyn.

Watched without subtitles.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Anchin to Kiyohime / 安珍と清姫 / (‘Anchin and Kiyohime’, 1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #261

Ayako Wakao

The Heian era. Kiyohime (Ayako Wakao) is the feisty daughter of a village headman. Out hunting a fox one day, she fires an arrow at it, but hits a handsome young monk, Anchin (Raizo Ichikawa), in the arm (presumably there was no cappuccino around in those days for her to spill on him). Apparently confusing the first aid procedure for arrow wounds with the one for snake bites, she sucks his wound and spits out the blood, then bandages it and invites him back to her place to recuperate. As a monk who takes his religion seriously, he spurns her company because he wants to avoid temptation; she takes this as an insult. To get revenge – in a literally ‘steamy’ scene made much of at the time – she follows him to a hot spring in which he’s taking a moonlit bath, strips off and makes as if to seduce him, then laughs in his face when he begins to give in to temptation. He runs off and confesses to a priest who advises him to go and stand under a waterfall until he stops thinking about her (is this the origin of the cold shower treatment?). Meanwhile, she decides that she really loves him after all, but of course everyone else in the movie is determined to keep them apart…

Raizo Ichikawa

This Daiei production was based on a legend about the ancient Buddhist temple of Dojoji in Wakayama Prefecture. The legend had been the basis for numerous Noh, kabuki and bunraku (puppet) plays, but the sole writing credit here goes to screenwriter Hideo Oguni, a frequent Kurosawa collaborator. Unfortunately, in this case he came up with such a corny load of old tosh that the only reasonable way to atone for it would have been to commit hara kiri. Even at a mere 85-minutes, it feels incredibly drawn-out and plods on predictably at a glacial pace before finally reaching its climax, in which either Ayako Wakao turned into a giant snake, or I had begun to hallucinate as a result of brain-rot brought on by the previous 75 minutes, I’m really not sure which.

This was the tenth of 19 films in which Ayako Wakao and Raizo Ichikawa – two of Daiei’s biggest stars – appeared together, and they were rumoured to have been lovers at the time. I don’t know about that, but they were certainly very flirty in a joint magazine interview quoted at this Japanese Raizo Ichikawa fan blog. In any case, one can only pity them here for being lumbered with such unconvincing characters and risible dialogue. Director Koji Shima throws in a couple of his trademark storms and makes it all look quite pretty in an artificial sort of way, but this one’s a lost cause, although – not too surprisingly, perhaps – it was a box office success at the time. All in all, it’s the sort of story that works much better in Kihachiro Kawamoto’s 20-minute puppet film version of 1976 entitled Dojoji, which you can watch on YouTube.

Incidentally, anyone visiting Wakayama Prefecture can visit Dojoji, where there is a picture scroll depicting the story of Anchin and Kiyohime, and request a monk to tell the story (with the option of English, I think). For more info, visit Dojoji’s English web page.

At the time of writing, masochists can watch the film with English subs on YouTube. 

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Aku no kaidan / 悪の階段 (‘Stairway to Evil’, 1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #260

Tsutomu Yamazaki

Ko Nishimura

Daisuke Kato

Akira Kubo

Iwao (Tsutomu Yamazaki, the kidnapper from Kurosawa’s High and Low) heads a gang of robbers comprised of Shimoyama (Ko Nishimura), the muscle; Konishi (Daisuke Kato), the getaway driver; Kumagai (Akira Kubo), the safecracker, and himself as mastermind. After making a huge score of over 40 million yen, they agree to split the loot equally four ways and leave it untouched for six months until the heat has cooled. However, it turns out that there’s little honour among thieves, and the men soon begin to fall out, partly due to greed, but also because of lust for Iwao’s girlfriend and accomplice, Rumiko (Reiko Dan)...

Reiko Dan

This Toho production was based on a 1964 novel entitled Ore no yumi wa… (‘My Dream Is…’) by Norio Nanjo (1908-2004), who had also supplied the source material for Masaki Kobayashi’s The Inheritance (1962) and Umetsugu Inoue’s The Third Shadow Warrior (1963). Like those stories, this one takes a rather jaundiced view of human nature, something which Nanjo seems to have shared with this film’s writer and director, Hideo Suzuki, who had made the similarly misanthropic Structure of Hate in 1961.

Reiko Dan

This is noir at its noirest, with dark shadows dominating the visual design throughout. Unusually for a Japanese film of its time, it’s shot in academy ratio, so whenever we get a close-up (which is often), the actor’s faces completely fill the screen. The film not only looks striking, but also sounds great due to Masaru Sato’s cool jazz score. The only element which I found a little disappointing was the plot – once you know where it’s going (which is quite early on), everything unfolds all too predictably.

Thankfully, the excellent cast help to keep the interest with the usually vivacious Reiko Dan successfully cast against type as a cold and gloomy moll, and – looking like the sinister love-child of Peter Lorre and Christopher Lee – the diminutive Ko Nishimura managing to be totally convincing as a man who could kill you with his bare hands (and probably would given half a chance).

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Niwatori wa futatabi naku / 鶏はふたゝび鳴く (‘The Cock Crows Twice’, 1954)

Obscure Japanese Film # 259

Eijiro Tono and Yoko Minakaze

After a man trying to find oil in order to revive the fortunes of his dying seaside town commits suicide, the locals blame Fumiko (Yoko Minakaze), a young woman who had rejected his sudden offer of marriage. Fumiko lives with her father, Tokinosuke (Eijiro Tono, great), who has been going to pieces since his wife ran off with another man. Ostracised by the townsfolk, Fumiko heads towards the sea with the intention of ending it all, but is spotted by an itinerant oil worker (Shuji Sano) who prevents her from going through with it. He and four other men have been left stranded since the suicide of their boss and Fumiko is moved by their kindness and relates to their outside status.

Shuji Sano

Sachiko Hidari, Minakaze and Yoko Kozono

It emerges that Fumiko has two female friends, Yoko (Yoko Kozono/Kosono) and Taniko (Sachiko Hidari), with whom she has made a suicide pact, each carrying a deadly pill in a locket around their necks. Yoko’s reason for being miserable is that she’s the daughter of a concubine (Sadako Sawamura), while Taniko’s is that she’s physically disabled and has to walk with a crutch. The women have agreed that they will all commit suicide together. Meanwhile, the stranded workers are debating whether to flee the town and escape the debts they’ve incurred or stick it out, hoping that a long-awaited telegram will arrive telling them to come to a new oil field. Then Kurama (Yunosuke Ito), an embezzler on the run from the police, arrives and claims to be an oil surveyor who intends to restart the drilling…

Yunosuke Ito

This Shintoho production has an unusual story which is a creation of Rinzo Shiina (1911-73), who wrote the original screenplay and had written the novel on which director Heinosuke Gosho’s Where Chimneys are Seen (1953) had been based. However, there are certain similarities to Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1951), which I strongly suspect influenced this film. With all the talk of suicide, it first appears to be a rather bleak drama, but gradually transforms into a comedy. It’s not like any other Gosho film I’ve seen, and I found it quite engaging and charming in the way it takes delight in continually subverting our expectations. For example, when Fumiko’s wealthy aunt who has been turning down her father’s requests for money appears, we expect that she’ll be a terrible harridan – especially as she’s played by Eiko Miyoshi – but this proves not to be quite the case.

Eiko Miyoshi

It’s surprising to see Yoko Minakaze (1930-2007) in the lead role. She doesn’t look like a film star and, indeed, wasn’t one, but for some mysterious reason I felt her lack of star quality somehow worked in this film’s favour. Coming from the theatre, she enjoyed a long career on stage as well as screens both big and small, but this may well be her most major role in movies.

It’s worth noting that screenwriter Rinzo Shiina had converted to Christianity in 1950 and it’s easy to see how his beliefs influenced this work. It’s also perhaps the reason composer Toshiro Mayuzumi used choral music for his score, although this is one element I didn’t particularly care for. In most respects, though, this film is a gem and it’s also beautifully shot by Joji Ohara, who won a Mainichi Film Concours Award for Best Cinematography for his pains, making this a film crying out for a good quality release.

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The Women around the Shogun / 続大奥 (秘) 物語 / Zoku ooku maruhi monogatari (‘Secret Tales of the Inner Palace Sequel’, 1967)

Obscure Japanese Film #258

Tomoko Ogawa

This Toei production is a sequel to The Shogun and His Mistresses of the same year, and I recommend reading my review of that film first, even though this one has an entirely separate story.

It’s now 1786 and the 10^th shogun, Ieharu (Masao Mishima), is in power. Ochisa (Tomoko Ogawa), the adopted daughter of Lord Abe (Eitaro Ozawa), is sent to serve the shogun at Edo Castle, where her older sister Oshino (Hiroko Sakuramachi) is one of the shogun’s concubines. It’s not long before Ochisa is forced into the same position, but the sisters try not to become enemies despite the bitchy machinations of the other women around them. However, when the shogun suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, Ochisa finds herself sent to a nunnery with the other concubines, where they’re expected to spend the rest of their lives praying for Ieharu’s soul. The head nun (Chieko Hagashiyama) ensures that the women are cut off from the outside world with the result that one goes mad, another turns to lesbianism and a third starts an affair with a priest – but what will become of Ochisa?

Ogawa with Masao Mishima

Dropping the anthology structure of the first film and released just three months later, it’s no surprise that this rushed-into-production sequel is weaker, especially as it relies on an inexperienced actor to carry it – in her first leading role, 18-year-old Tomoko Ogawa was a last-minute replacement for Yoshiko Sakuma (who reportedly objected to what she saw as an increasing sexual emphasis, although the finished product is probably tamer than the first). As if this were not challenging enough, Ochisa is not a terribly interesting character in the first place, although she does eventually reveal another dimension towards the end and Ogawa does a fair job under the circumstances. However, although her performance was well-received and Toei planned to star her in further similar pictures, disappointing box office led them to insist that she do nude scenes from then on, causing her to quit films and turn to singing, where she found considerable success. Incidentally, Yoshiko Sakuma was not the only one to be replaced – shooting began with Michiko Saga as the older sister, but she apparently got in a strop due to too much waiting around and left after three days, forcing Toei to replace her with Hiroko Sakuramachi.

Hiroko Sakuramachi

Casting shenanigans aside, this is still a decent movie, and one which also benefits from the splendidly villainous presence of Ko Nishimura, who instigates an impressively bloody sword fight with multiple opponents at the film’s climax. Composer Sei Ikeno’s score might have been better suited to a horror movie, but it’s not ineffective, while director Sadao Nakajima (who also made the previous film) is adept at extracting the maximum amount of drama from every scene. The original screenplay by Takeo Kunihiro and Takehiro Nakajima might seem too similar to the original at first, but goes off in some interesting directions before finally revealing its surprising theme of an individual rebelling against the oppressive feudal system. Unusually, in this case, the turning worm is no put-upon samurai, but a concubine who has finally had enough of having no say in her own destiny.

Ko Nishimura

DVD at Toei Video (no English subtitles)

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Sanmon yakusha / 三文役者 (‘Third-Rate Actor’, 2000)

Obscure Japanese Film #257

Taiji Tonoyama

This late film by the prolific writer-director Kaneto Shindo (best known for his 1964 picture, Onibaba) tells the story of Taiji Tonoyama, an actor who appeared in most of Shindo’s films before his death at the age of 73 in 1989. Tonoyama was a short, prematurely bald Yoda lookalike with sad, baggy eyes, so he was usually to be found among the supporting casts of the many films he appeared in, in roles of various sizes – the only leading roles played by him that I’m aware of were in two Shindo films: The Naked Island (1960) and the previously-reviewed Libido (1967).

Naoto Takenaka

Shindo recreates scenes from the actor’s life with Naoto Takenaka as Tonoyama, placing the focus on his relationships with his first wife, Asako (Hideko Yoshida), and second wife, Kimie (Keiko Oginome), whom he meets when he is 36 and still married to Asako and Kimie is 17 and working as a waitress. Tonoyama was an unlikely womaniser and we also see him picking up various barmaids with apparent ease while simultaneously fighting a lifelong battle with the demon drink. Shindo intersperses these dramatisations with scenes from the films they made together and a straight-to-camera interview with Nobuko Otowa, Shindo’s mistress and eventual wife who frequently acted alongside Tonoyama (Otowa died in 1994, so Shindo must have been sitting on this for at least 6 years). Towards the end, there is also some very brief interview footage with fellow directors Shohei Imamura, Hiromichi Horikawa and Seijiro Koyama.

Nobuko Otowa

Shindo had already written a book about Tonoyama, who had also written a number of books himself, notably a 1966 volume whose title translates as The Irresponsible Ramblings of a Third-Rate Actor (unsurprisingly, these have not made it into English).While I’ve long been a fan of Tonoyama myself, I’m not really sure that Shindo has done his memory a lot of favours by making this film. Although Naoto Takenaka’s performance seems a pretty good Tonoyama impression for the first couple of minutes, he goes on to deliver every line with exactly the same throaty, drawn-out intonation, and it gets old fast. The film is also way too long at over two hours – a one-hour documentary would have been far more preferable in my view, especially as the end result feels so superficial and sentimental, with the repetitive piano and violin music-by-numbers score delivering the coup de grâce to what is easily the weakest Shindo film I’ve seen.

Keiko Oginome

A note on the title:

The film is frequently listed as ‘By Player’ in English, but I’m sure this was never an official release title. It’s also meaningless, and I can only assume that somebody somewhere came up with ‘bit player’ as a translation for ‘sanmon yakusha’ and somehow managed to confuse ‘bit’ with ‘by’.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

English subtitles at Open Subtitles

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