Obscure Japanese Film #8
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| Isuzu Yamada and Tomisaburo Wakayama |
Based on a play by Shin Hasegawa entitled Mabuta no haha (which translates rather awkwardly as ‘Mother of the Eyelids’), Chutaro of Banba stars Tomisaburo ‘Lone Wolf’ Wakayama in one of his first film appearances as the title character. Having already been a famous kabuki actor before quitting the theatre in 1953 to concentrate on judo (becoming a black-belt in the process), Wakayama’s cinema career saw him go straight into starring roles in action pictures.
Chutaro of Banba has an autobiographical element as original author Hasegawa had himself been separated from his mother at an early age and the hero of his story is a matatabi (wandering yakuza) searching for his long-lost mother. Along the way, Chutaro gets into fights with less honourable yakuza, picks up a couple of waifs and strays, makes a few friends and falls in love. The opening fight scene may seem a little tame as, pre-dating Yojimbo by several years, it’s too early for spurting blood, hacked-off limbs and even the sound of clashing swords, but Wakayama moves pretty fast for a chubby guy and is even better in a later fight scene when he fends off multiple opponents with a water dipper.
The film boasts a strong supporting
cast, three of whom have Kurosawa connections. Chutaro’s friend Hanji is played
by Koji Mitsui, who appeared in seven Kurosawa films from Scandal to Dodes’ka-den,
most notably as the gambler in The Lower
Depths, where he got to deliver the memorable last line, ‘Idiot…you ruined
the song.’ He rarely played a leading role, but specialised in acerbic
character parts in which his wonderfully rasping voice and expressive facial features
made an indelible impression. The English Wikipedia page for Mitsui is surprisingly detailed and well worth a read.
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| Koji Mitsui |
Hanji’s sister, who supplies the love interest in the film, is played by Yoko Katsuragi, who was Takashi Shimura’s sick daughter in Kurosawa’s Scandal and also popped up in the Kurosawa-scripted The Portrait (1948), directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, although she has a better part in Kinoshita’s A Broken Drum (1949) as an aspiring actress playing Hamlet.
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| Yoko Katsuragi |
Most notably, however, Isuzu Yamada appears as Chutaro’s mother. Yamada was one of the greats and appeared in three films for Kurosawa, always in villainous roles - most memorably as the Lady Macbeth equivalent in Throne of Blood. In her youth she had been a beauty, often playing romantic leads, and she had in fact appeared in the first version of Mabuta no haha in 1931 – not as the mother, but as Otose, the half-sister Chutaro never knew he had (played in the 1955 version by Sanae Mitsuoka).
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| Isuzu Yamada |
The 1931 film was a silent directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starring Tomu Uchida favourite Chiezo Kataoka (Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji / Swords in the Moonlight / Killing in Yoshiwara). Kataoka repeated the role for a 1936 version, while a third appeared in 1938 starring Kazuo Hasegawa (Gate of Hell / An Actor’s Revenge), making the 1955 film the fourth but not the last: in 1962, Tai Kato directed a remake with Kinnosuke Nakamura.
This 1955 Shintoho version is directed by Nobuo Nakagawa, remembered mostly for his horror films and sometimes referred to as ‘the Roger Corman of Japan.’ His best-known film nowadays seems to be Jigoku (Hell, 1960) – a shame, as I personally thought that was easily the worst of the five Nakagawa films I’ve seen. Much better were The Ghost of Yotsuya and a couple of female-focused films noir, Death Row Woman and A Wicked Woman.
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| Hisaya Morishige, Tomisaburo Wakayama and Yoko Katsuragi |
Chutaro of Banba has a lot going for it – the strong cast, which also includes an enjoyable guest star appearance by Hisaya Morishige as a surprisingly genial law enforcement official; Kagai Okaido’s dynamic camerawork and excellent sense of composition, and a pretty decent music score by Yasuji Kiyose. The story may be sentimental but there are quirks enough to keep things interesting all the way to the finale, when we are treated to one of those unnecessarily sad endings that Japanese audiences seem to crave (see my earlier review of The Saga of Tanegashima for more thoughts on this phenomenon).
The film can be bought in a good quality print with excellent subtitles (by Merlin David) here: https://samuraidvd.com/chutaro-of-banba/
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