'Kuruwa' yori Muho ichidai / 「廓」より 無法一代 (From 'Red Light District': The Lawless Age, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #265

Tatsuya Mihashi and Michiyo Aratama

1906, the 39^th year of the Meiji Era. Kanta (Tatsuya Mihashi) and O-Gin (Michiyo Aratama) arrive in Chushojima, the red light district of Fushimi City near Kyoto, with the intention of setting up their own brothel with the help of O-Gin’s somewhat reluctant uncle (Jukichi Uno). They find an ideal property, but are less lucky in finding prostitutes – of the three they initially hire, one (Haruna Kaburagi) comes down with a venereal disease and has to be hospitalised, another (Harue Tone) is planning to abscond with her yakuza boyfriend (a pre-cheek-job Joe Shishido) and the remaining one, Kikuno (Izumi Ashikawa), is unable to reconcile herself with her new profession and is utterly miserable. If that weren’t bad enough, Kanta finds himself in conflict with Ikarigawa (Misao Shimizu), the local yakuza boss, and the Salvation Army are spreading anti-prostitution propaganda. It’s a tough life being a ponce…

Jukichi Uno

Joe Shishido

This Nikkatsu production was based on the first part of a bestselling trilogy of novels entitled Kuruwa by Katsumi Nishiguchi (1913-86) published between 1956 and 1958. According to Japanese Wikipedia, Nishiguchi had himself been born into a family that owned a brothel in Chushojima, and Nikkatsu’s website states that Kanta was based on his father. In 1957, prostitution was a hot topic in Japan as the Prostitution Prevention Law had just been passed and was due to come into force the following year, hence there were a number of films on the topic produced around this time, most famously Kenji Mizoguchi’s Akasen chitai, but also Yuzo Kawashima’s excellent Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District, another Nikkatsu production starring Mihashi, Aratama and Ashikawa released the previous year to this one. Nishiguchi, a member of the Japanese Communist Party, seems to have been strongly opposed to prostitution despite his family background, and this film has an obvious anti-capitalist message at its heart.

Izumi Ashikawa (front) and friends on display for passing customers

Tatsuya Mihashi

Tatsuya Mihashi, the film’s leading man, would have had little sympathy with Nishiguchi’s communist beliefs – the actor had been a prisoner of war in Siberia, and subsequently refused to take any plane that flew over Russian airspace. Mihashi was known as ‘the Japanese Cary Grant’ due to his alleged resemblance to the Hollywood star, though I can’t really see it myself. In any case, this is one of the best roles he ever had in the movies.

One interesting aspect of this film is the choice to make the perpetrators rather than the victims the main protagonists as one can hardly root for people like these. However, they’re certainly not one-dimensional villains – Kanta seems to have become obsessed with money only as a result of witnessing how the poor can be victimised by the rich and powerful with impunity, and he has a reckless courage in taking on a gang of yakuza single-handed. For her part, O-Gin’s love for her husband is strong enough to override her misgivings, at least at the beginning. The rounded performances by the two leads also ensure we never completely despise them and, in fact, do root for them in one way, at least – by hoping they will come to see the error of their ways. But perhaps that’s not easy for them in a world where the other local business owners see it as their right to exploit women by forcing them into sexual slavery. By showing all this so clearly, the film forces the audience to think seriously about Japan’s uncomfortable history with prostitution and the price that is paid when people decide to choose money over morality.

Misao Shimizu

The unconventional ending strongly suggested to me that there was supposed to be a sequel, but for some reason one was never made. I think the film may have rubbed people’s noses in it a bit too much to have been a box office success, but this is pure speculation on my part. In any case, this is a very well-done film all around and the best I’ve seen so far by director Eisuke Takizawa, here working from a screenplay by the prolific Toshio Yasumi.

A note on the title:

The film begins by displaying the character 廓 (kuruwa), then 無法一代 (muho ichidai) is superimposed over the top. Most Japanese sites list the film as 「廓」より　無法一代  (‘Kuruwa yori Muho ichidai’, which is perhaps best translated as ‘From Red Light District: The Lawless Age’), but sometimes the film is listed simply as Muho ichidai, omitting the reference to the title of the novel. Others have translated muho ichidai as ‘Outrageous Generation,’ but in my opinion this is a poorer fit for the material and was never an official English title as far as I can see. I believe the standard Japanese for ‘red light district’ is akasen chitai; kuruwa is an alternative which I suspect had fallen out of use or was only used in a specific area, but if anyone knows better, please leave a comment below. 

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Born Wild, Run Free / イタズ 熊 / Itazu kuma (‘Bear’, 1987)

Obscure Japanese Film #264

Takahiro Tamura

1928. ‘One-Shot’ Ginzo (Takahiro Tamura), a matagi, or bear hunter, returns to his home village of Ani in Akita Prefecture after having spent 10 years in the penal colony on Sakhalin Island for fighting. He learns that his son was killed in action in Siberia seven years earlier, and that most of the villagers now work at the new mine. Ginzo’s daughter-in-law, Kimi (Junko Sakurada), is living as a widow with his grandson, Ippei (Hiroshi Miyata).

Junko Sakurada

When a bear kills one of the villagers, Ginzo sets out to kill it and succeeds. However, shortly after this, a bear cub turns up looking for its mother. Ginzo, believing that he has committed a sin against the god of the mountains by making the cub an orphan, resolves to give up hunting and raise the cub to make amends. Ippei is delighted to have a furry new playmate, but of course cute little bears turn into big scary ones and one day they will have to release it back into the wild…

Hiroshi Miyata and friend

This co-production between Toei and the independent Kobushi Productions was made to capitalise on the success of director Toshio Goto’s earlier film The Old Bear Hunter (1982), although this film is aimed more specifically at the family market, with considerable focus on the boy and the bear cub. There are even two montage sequences of the two frolicking together and the bear getting into various mischief over which a female singer croons a cheesy ballad about human-animal friendship. The film is not exactly subtle, then, but it is quite well-made and entertaining, and some of the animal and nature footage is certainly impressive even if the filmmakers occasionally resort to using a fake bear for the more difficult shots (there is some pretty amazing ursine acting at the end, though…)

As with Goto’s other wilderness movies, I would question how much the welfare of the animals was considered here, and I can’t help feeling there’s some hypocrisy in promoting such a film as wholesome family entertainment when some of the various bears used must have had an unpleasant time in certain scenes . Still, I suppose this reflects our generally inconsistent attitude to animals, which easily changes depending on convenience; in this film, bears are both monstrous killers and cute anthropomorphised playmates as the story demands.

It’s perhaps worth saying a few words about this film’s star, Takahiro Tamura (1928-2006), whose father was none other than Tsumasaburo Bando, the sword-fighting star of silent films whose career continued until his untimely death in 1953 at the age of 51. Apparently, Bando died owing money to Shochiku, the studio which had him under contract, and Tamura was urged to follow in his father’s footsteps as a means of repaying his debts, which he agreed to do. However, he refused to be marketed as Tsumasaburo Bando mark II and resisted appearing in period dramas for the most part. He worked for Shochiku from 1953-1963, becoming a regular in Keisuke Kinoshita’s films, then went freelance. Career highlights include his role as Shintaro Katsu’s sidekick in The Hoodlum Soldier series (1965-68), Seisaku in Yasuzo Masumura’s Seisaku’s Wife (1965) opposite Ayako Wakao, the air force commander in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and the father in the Oscar-nominated Muddy River (1981). I don’t think Tamura ever became a box office draw, but he was a serious, hard-working actor who managed to avoid typecasting and successfully took on a wide range of roles. His performance in this film may be a tad broad at times, but on the whole he makes a good fist of it and, though Ginzo initially appears unlikeably gruff and aggressive, Tamura gradually reveals the heart of gold that’s concealed beneath the surface.

A note on the title:

イタズ (itazu) means ‘bear’ in the matagi language, but as this would not be understood by most Japanese people, the original title also contains the standard Japanese word for ‘bear’, 熊 (kuma).

English subtitles at Open Subtitles

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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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