Actress /女優 / Joyu (1947)

Obscure Japanese Film #66

Isuzu Yamada

Sumako Matsui (1886-1919) was an actress who became the first major female star of shingeki, a Japanese theatre movement which sprung up in the late Meiji era and mainly staged Western plays in translation without transposing them to a Japanese setting. In other words, the actors would be dressed in Western clothes and often blonde wigs to perform works by playwrights such as Ibsen and Shakespeare. This may seem odd – after all, there’s no equivalent Western theatrical movement in which actors perform Asian plays in translation – but it should be remembered that Japan had isolated itself for over 200 years prior to the arrival of United States Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 (which led to the Meiji Restoration of 1868), so it was a movement borne out of a natural curiosity about foreign culture. Before the emergence of shingeki, Japanese theatre had consisted almost entirely of kabuki, Noh and bunraku, all of which had persisted for centuries with little change. The shingeki movement eventually came to include new works written by Japanese dramatists in a more realistic Western style with contemporary Japanese settings. Unsurprisingly, during the war years, shingeki was suppressed by the Japanese authorities as anti-patriotic, but when the Americans occupied the country after the war, they actively encouraged its revival. 

The real Sumako Matsui

 

In 1947, Shochiku studios produced Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Love of Sumako the Actress starring Kinuyo Tanaka in the title role, while Toho produced this film about Sumako Matsui, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa and starring Isuzu Yamada. That two rival companies hit on the same subject at the same time is probably not in this case because they thought a film about Matsui would be box office gold – after all, the popularity of shingeki was largely limited to intellectual Tokyo-ites. The more likely reason is that, during the American occupation, the film studios in Japan were restricted in their choice of subject matter, but could be sure of enthusiastic approval for films which promoted Western values, as any story set in the world of shingeki was bound to do.  

Isuzu Yamada

 

In Actress, we first meet Sumako when she is still going by her real name of Masako Kobayashi. A country girl with two failed marriages behind her, she joins a shingeki theatre school but is not a good student at first – she snacks in class and doesn’t do her homework. However, after a stern reprimand, she changes her attitude and begins to put more effort in than any of the others. This soon pays off and, much to the disgust of the other female students, she is rewarded with the lead role of Nora in A Doll’s House. She is a success in the part and grows close to her teacher, Hogetsu Shimamura (Yoshi Hijikata), who believes in her despite the attempts of Sumako’s fellow students to undermine her at every opportunity. Sumako and Shimamura begin having an affair, but tragedy strikes when he falls ill. 

Yamada with Yoshi Hijikata

 

Kenji Mizoguchi’s version of this story is one of his more minor works and he reputedly said that he preferred Kinugasa’s longer film to his own. Running nearly two hours, Actress feels a little too long and the rather niche shingeki theme hasn’t dated terribly well. However, as a vehicle for Isuzu Yamada, it could not be better as we not only see her transformation from naive country bumpkin to sophisticated actress, but she gets to run the gamut of emotions and appear in a variety of stage roles as well. Yamada is excellent as always and is better casting in this role than Kinuyo Tanaka, being closer to the correct age and having a stronger resemblance to the real Sumako. 

 

Director Teinosuke Kinugasa is best known for A Page of Madness (1926) and Gate of Hell (1953). This is a lesser film – it’s well-made, but not exceptionally so, although it should be remembered that Japanese directors were still working with limited resources in 1947 and the quality of the country’s cinema would improve significantly over the coming years. 

 

IMDb states that Kinugasa was at one time married to Isuzu Yamada, but this is incorrect –Kinugasa was married to someone else when he had an affair with Yamada which lasted from 1946-50 and was therefore in progress during the making of this film.

 

 

 

Masao Mishima

Among the supporting cast, the most familiar are the omnipresent Masao Mishima as a stagehand and Takashi Shimura in a very minor role as the owner of the building in which the school holds lessons. 

 

 Watch on YouTube (with imperfect subtitles).
 

Demon Statue/ 魔像 / Mazo (1952)

Obscure Japanese Film #65

Tsumasaburo Bando and Isuzu Yamada

This Shochiku production is based on a popular story by the creator of Tange Sazen, Kaitaro Hasegawa (1900-35). Mazo was first published in 1930 under one of his pen-names, Fubo Hayashi, and the story has been filmed multiple times. Set in the mid-Edo period, it concerns Takanosuke Kamio* (Tsumasaburo Bando), who works as a guard at the castle and is disgusted with the corruption of his superiors. They also mock him as effeminate as he prefers to spend his time with his beautiful young wife, Sonoe (Keiko Tsushima). 

Keiko Tsushima

 

One New Year’s Day, he is summoned to appear before them and the abuse goes further than usual, instigated by Omisuke Tobe (Mitsuo Nagata), who is jealous of Takanosuke as he had desired Sonoe for himself. He throws something at Takanosuke, gashing his forehead, and the group of 18 men bully him into making an apology for some imaginary transgression. Seated on the tatami, Takanosuke bows low and when he remains that way, Omisuke begins to shove him but is disconcerted when Takanosuke suddenly laughs in his face and walks out. Omisuke sees this crazed laugh as an insult and goes after him. Returning a while later, he drops dead in front of the others and they realise he has been slain by Takanosuke, who goes on the run. He falls in with a ronin, Ukon Ibara (Tsumasaburo Bando again), who looks just like him, and his wife, O-Gen (Isuzu Yamada). They also hate the corrupt officials and decide to help Takanosuke to get revenge on the other 17 men…

Given that an alternative translation of ‘mazo’ is ‘golem’, I had expected to see a monster made from stone or clay going on the rampage, but in that I was sadly disappointed. I can only assume that Takanosuke himself is the ‘demon statue’ in the sense that he is unflinching in his revenge. This story of rebellion has quite a lot in common with director Tatsuo Osone’s later Honno-ji in Flames, even down to the forehead-gashing suffered by the hero. 

 

Tsumasaburo Bando

However, this is the lesser of the two works – it’s a smaller scale production and contains a surprising amount of comic elements, including the coquettish wife portrayed by Isuzu Yamada, who steals every scene she’s in. 

Isuzu Yamada

 

If it seems hard to believe this is Lady Macbeth from Throne of Blood, after having seen at least 23 of her films by this point, I’ve been so impressed by her versatility that I’ve come to think of her as a sort of female Alec Guinness. 

Tsumasaburo Bando x 2

 

Tsumasaburo Bando is also good in two contrasting roles, but then he had certainly had plenty of practise as he had played them both twice before (see note below). He was one of those big stars of the era who is largely forgotten about now, perhaps partly because he passed away due to a stroke only one year after making this film. Also something of a revelation here is Masao Mishima, who appears in a role completely unlike any other I've seen him in and pulls it off nicely.

Masao Mishima

 

This is a well-made and enjoyable film, but ultimately an inconsequential one which never really rises above the level of entertainment. 

Tsumasaburo Bando

 

*An alternative reading of Takanosuke Kamio is Kyounosuke Kajio. I’m uncertain which is correct. 

Other versions:

1930 by Daisuke Ito starring Denjiro Okochi

1936 by Jun Ishigami also starring Tsumasaburo Bando 

1938 by Hiroshi Inagaki also starring Tsumasaburo Bando 

1956 by Kinnosuke Fukada starring Ryutaro Otomo

1962 as Chimoji yashiki ('Blood Letter 

Mansion') by Eiichi Kudo starring Ryutaro Otomo

Isuzu Yamada

 

Will to Live / 生きたい/ Ikitai (1999)

Obscure Japanese Film #64

Rentaro Mikuni

 

Yasukichi (Rentaro Mikuni) is an ageing widower who can no longer control his bowels. He wants to continue living in his own house but is forced to consider moving to an old people’s home, partly out of consideration for his manic-depressive daughter, Tokuko (Shinobu Otake), with whom he lives. His situation leads to an obsession with a folk tale, The Legend of Mount Obasute, which tells of how the inhabitants of a remote mountain village used to abandon their elderly at the top of the mountain. 

Mikuni with Shinobu Otake

 

The Legend of Mount Obasute was the basis of the 1956 story 'The Ballad of Narayama' by Shichiro Fukasawa, filmed by Keisuke Kinoshita in 1958 and by Shohei Imamura in 1983. Both versions, though differing greatly in treatment, are masterpieces of Japanese cinema. In this later film, writer-director Kaneto Shindo has chosen to incorporate lengthy black-and-white sequences which retell the same story, so the parallels with Yasukichi’s situation could not be more explicit. I’m not sure we needed to see this story again, although the most memorable images in Will to Live come from these parts of the film. 

Hideko Yoshida and Masayuki Shionoya

 

In my view, the tone of light comedy which prevails in the rest of the picture seems inappropriate for the subject matter and prevents it from ever really becoming emotionally involving in the way it should have been. I was also unconvinced by the portrayal of what used to be called manic depression and is now known as bipolar disorder; admittedly I’m no expert, but in my limited experience based on people I’ve known, I think it usually manifests itself much more subtly than we see here. 

I would recommend Masahiro Kobayashi’s Haru’s Journey and Japan’s Tragedy as being far more convincing and effective films on the theme of the problems of ageing in Japan. 

Hideko Yoshida

 

Mount Hakkoda / 八甲田山 / Hakkado-san (1977)

Obscure Japanese Film #63

 

In the winter of 1901-02, a small squad and a larger regiment of soldiers try to find their way through the merciless Hakkoda mountains from opposite sides with the intention of meeting in the middle and establishing a new route to safeguard their supplies in the event of a Russian invasion. The two groups are led by Captain Tokushima (Ken Takakura) and Captain Kanda (Kinya Kitaoji); both men have the opportunity to decline the challenge but accept it against their better judgment due to fear of losing face. And so a tragedy is born out of the pride of men. 

 

Ken Takakura

I’m fascinated by tales of survival and love films shot in rugged locations, so I thought this would be right up my street, but I was disappointed for a number of reasons. Although the location photography is indeed impressive (the actors and crew were working in incredibly harsh conditions), Mount Hakkoda unfortunately has little else to recommend it and is far too long and drawn-out. It’s basically three hours of men being stupid, and no opportunity for overacting is missed - except by Ken Takakura, of course, who was incapable of such a thing. Kinya Kitaoji and Rentaro Mikuni also put in decent performances, but too many of the others unnecessarily shout every line of their dialogue in a ‘WHAT I’M SAYING IS REALLY IMPORTANT!’ kind of way. Perhaps this is overcompensation due to the utter lack of memorable characters in the film. Some scenes are also completely unconvincing; in one unintentionally funny sequence, a soldier goes mad, strips off all his clothes and promptly drops dead. We are told that the sweat on his body instantly froze when he stepped outside the shelter and into the freezing air, and that this is what killed him. Yeah, right. Another character supposedly bites off his own tongue to commit suicide, something which I also doubt is possible. Such nonsense might be more forgivable were it not for the fact that this is based on a true historical incident. But we are in movie-land here, which is also made clear when Kumiko Akiyoshi turns up as a beautiful young villager who guides the soldiers part of the way, putting them all to shame as she skips effortlessly through the snow while the men struggle and gasp for breath behind her. Other members of the all-star cast, such as Keiju Kobayashi and Tetsuro Tanba, are wasted in nothing roles. 

 

Kumiko Akiyoshi

Yasushi Akutagawa’s music score is unsubtle, sentimental and repetitive, which pretty much sums up the movie as well. Shinobu Hashimoto produced and wrote this (based on a novel by Jiro Nitta) and it was directed by Shiro Moritani, a former assistant of Akira Kurosawa. Talking of Kurosawa, if he had directed it, he would no doubt have improved the script, made the characters more colourful, insisted on a better music score and made the whole thing a far more profound and resonant study of man’s folly.

Hateful Thing / 憎いもの / Nikui mono / (1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #62

 

This Toho B-movie features Kurosawa favourite Kamatari Fujiwara in a rare leading role as Hikoichi, a meek and mild provincial who goes to Tokyo for the first time in 20 years in order to seek out cheap goods to sell in his store and also see his daughter, Yuko (Kyoko Anzai), who works in an office there and has been sending money home regularly. He is accompanied on his visit by Kiyama (Eijiro Tono), a fellow store owner who is more experienced and successful but has a less wholesome reason for visiting the capital. Hikoichi enjoys spending a day with his apparently unchanged daughter and the business side of his trip is also successful. When Kiyama insists that he join him on a visit to a brothel one evening, Hikoichi reluctantly agrees, although he declines to sleep with any of the young women available. However, while there he learns something that causes him a terrible shock and turns his life upside down…

Kamatari Fujiwara and Kyoko Anzai

Adapted by the great screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto from a short story by Yojiro Ishizaka, this is an effective little film with a cruelly ironic and rather unpleasant twist. While some of the early scenes may be on the bland side, this only serves to make the last third more unsettling. These latter scenes contain a number of memorable images, mainly involving the use of masks, and Fujiwara’s performance is especially good when Hikoichi finally turns from mild-mannered rube to violent avenger.

Kamatari Fujiwara

Kamatari Fujiwara (1905-85) remains best known as the untrusting farmer Manzo in Seven Samurai and the drunken kabuki actor in The Lower Depths. Aside from Hateful Thing, the only other film I'm aware of in which he had the leading role is Mikio Naruse's charming comedy Tabi yakusha (1940), where he was a pompous itinerant kabuki actor cast as the front half of a horse. Although diminutive in stature, he is said to have had considerable martial art skills, which he once used to knock Toshiro Mifune to the ground during an argument when filming The Hidden Fortress. He later found himself in America appearing in Arthur Penn’s 1965 film Mickey One. 

Fujiwara with Eijiro Tono

 

Eijiro Tono (another member of the Kurosawa-gumi) is one of those actors who appeared to enjoy playing repellent types and was very good at it, having the ability to speak as he does here in an incredibly grating voice. One particularly nice touch is when Hikoichi gets drunk after the shocking revelation and starts talking like Kiyama! Was this an imitation by Kamatari Fujiwara or was he dubbed by Tono? I would love to know. The cast of Kurosawa regulars is rounded out by Noriko Sengoku as a maid and Seiji Miyaguchi as a detective. 

Director Seiji Maruyama would go on to be better known for his World War II films such as Admiral Yamamoto (1968) and Battle of the Japan Sea (1969).

Hateful Thing was the fourth in the ‘Toho Diamond’ series – these were stand-alone B-movies adapted from various literary works with running times of around an hour. 

 

Goodbye, Hello / あなたと私の合言葉 さようなら、今日は / Anata to watashi no aikotoba sayōnara, konnichi wa (1959)

Obscure Japanese Film #61

L-R: Hitomi Nozoe, Shin Saburi, Ayako Wakao and Machiko Kyo

 

This comedy from Daiei studios stars Ayako Wakao as Kazuko, a modern young career woman working for Nissan Motors in Tokyo and living at home with her widowed father, Gosuke (Shin Saburi). Looking after him takes up much of her free time as he tends to come home drunk and is so useless in the kitchen that he can’t slice a lettuce without nearly severing a finger in the process. 

Hitomi Nozoe

 

Kazuko’s spoilt younger sister Michiko (Hitomi Nozoe) is no help in the house and is focusing on her new career as a flight stewardess. Kazuko has a fiancée, Hanjiro (Kenji Sugawara), but she seldom sees him as he is working in Osaka. The engagement is an arranged one and Kazuko’s heart is not really in it, so she decides to break it off. Her best friend, Umeko (Machiko Kyo), also lives in Osaka, where she runs a restaurant with her stepbrother, Torao (Eiji Funakoshi), who hopes one day to marry his stepsister. When Umeko comes to see Kazuko in Tokyo, Kazuko asks her to pay a visit to Hanjiro and cancel the engagement on her behalf, but when Umeko meets him, she falls for him herself. Meanwhile, Michiko has a crush on Tetsu (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), a young man who delivers the laundry and attends night school, but he is smitten with Kazuko, so it seems that everyone is in love with the wrong person…

Ayako Wakao

 

Were it not for some quirky humour typical of director Kon Ichikawa, this could easily pass for a Yasuzo Masumura film and covers similar themes to Masumura’s Beauty is Guilty released the same year and featuring much of the same cast. Both films are concerned with the new possibilities which were opening up for women in Japan at the time and both feature a modern, Westernised woman (played by Ayako Wakao) contrasted with a more traditional counterpart who dresses in Japanese clothes (Machiko Kyo here, Fujiko Yamamoto in Beauty is Guilty) .  

Machiko Kyo and Ayako Wakao

Goodbye, Hello is also something of a twist on the films of Ozu in which Setsuko Hara ponders whether to leave home and get married or stay and look after widowed father Chishu Ryu. The ending of this film subverts the expectations that audiences would have had from familiarity with Ozu’s pictures. 

 

Although it’s a minor work in the filmography of Kon Ichikawa, it’s certainly not without interest, especially as it features such a strong cast. Ayako Wakao and Machiko Kyo were paired by Daiei on quite a few occasions and clearly worked well together. 

Kenji Sugawara, Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Eiji Funakoshi making their best drinking faces

 

Hiroshi Kawaguchi is actually quite funny and likeable for a change; he married frequent co-star Hitomi Nozoe the following year. There’s even a brief appearance by a skinny young Jiro Tamiya right at the beginning (when he was still known by his real name, Goro Shibata). 

Jiro Tamiya (left)

 

The screenplay was co-written by Kon Ichikawa and his wife Natto Wada under their pen name of ‘Kurishitei’ in collaboration with Kazuo Funahashi. Some Japanese sources say that it had first appeared as a serialised novel. The Japanese title actually translates as The Password for You and I is ‘Goodbye, Hello’.

Watched without subtitles. 

DVD at Amazon Japan