Bonchi (The Son) / ぼんち (1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #15

Ayako Wakao and Raizo Ichikawa

Set in Osaka, Bonchi stars Raizo Ichikawa as Kikuji, a young womaniser who inherits his father’s tabi[1] business and has affairs with a number of women (including Ayako Wakao as an 18-year-old geisha with a taste for gaudy jewellery and Machiko Kyo as a teahouse hostess). His mother (Isuzu Yamada) and grandmother (Kikue Mori) are a couple of old connivers obsessed with appearances and tradition. For some reason I was unable to fathom, they kick his first wife (Tamao Nakamura) out when she gives birth to a baby boy. (According to other commentators, the two older women will only accept a female heir in order to maintain their tradition of matriarchal power; this may well be the case, but was unclear to me despite watching with good quality English subtitles). Anyway, their continual interference in Kikuji’s life prevents him from marrying again, and he eventually has a second son by Ponta (Wakao) out of wedlock. The story is told in flashback by a grey-haired Kikuji to a friend (Ganjiro Nakamura).

Ayako Wakao

 

Around two years prior to the production of Bonchi, Raizo Ichikawa had escaped his regular jidaigeki assignments to play the stuttering trainee monk turned arsonist in Conflagration, an adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion directed by Kon Ichikawa (no relation). Although the producers at Daiei had taken some convincing that he had been right for the part, the collaboration had been a happy one and the casting a success. Bonchi was a project based on a then recently-published novel and initiated by Raizo Ichikawa, who took it to Kon Ichikawa and asked him to direct. He agreed and asked his wife and regular screenwriter Natto Wada to adapt Toyoko Yamasaki’s book. 

Ayako Wakao and Raizo Ichikawa

 

The story is set mainly during the early Showa period (late 1920s), but Wada contributed the flashback structure and expanded the post-war scenes. This incurred the wrath of Yamasaki, who reportedly tried to stop production after filming had already begun. She subsequently became known for her studies of corruption in institutions in a number of novels which director Satsuo Yamamoto turned into successful films: The Great White Tower, The Family and The Barren Zone. (I wrote about the latter two in my Tatsuya Nakadai biography as he appeared in both. I also read the abridged English translation of The Barren Zone; the style suggested that Yamasaki was a writer of best-sellers rather than highbrow literature. An English translation of Bonchi appeared in the 1980s through various publishers). 

Kikue Mori and Isuzu Yamada

 

Bonchi seems to me to be a comedy rather than a drama, and the tone is light throughout, with a contemporary jazz score providing an ironic counterpoint to the proceedings. The film has a twist ending, but I have to say it’s a twist I completely failed to see the point in. Bonchi was not selected for release in the West at the time, and it’s not difficult to see why – some Japanese films are perhaps simply too Japanese to travel well. I would say this is a case in point as the story revolves around etiquette and traditions involving concubinage, etc, which I for one found somewhat baffling. Still, it’s a pleasure to watch such a great cast in a well-made film. The character was clearly close to Raizo Ichikawa’s heart, as he also played the role on stage the year the film was released. However, for me, the best performance is by Isuzu Yamada, who here vacillates between domineering malice and childlike sentimentality most convincingly.

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[1] Japanese socks which divide the big toe from the other four.