The Virgin Witness / 処女が見た / Shojo ga mita (1966)

Obscure Japanese Film #120

Michiyo Yasuda

Kazue (Michiyo Yasuda) is an 18-year-old orphan who has been adopted by her uncle and aunt, with whom she does not get along. Troubled and rebellious, she is prone to violent emotional outbursts which cause her to be expelled from school, leading her uncle to beg the local Buddhist head priest (Shozo Nanbu) to find a suitable temple to take her in. 

 

Ayako Wakao

Kazue is brought to a temple run by Chiei (Ayako Wakao), an attractive young nun who is initially strict and somewhat remote with Kazue, who soon learns that life there will mostly consist of chanting sutras, cleaning, and eating tasteless food. However, Kazue finds herself drawn to Chiei. In one unlikely scene, she manages to persuade Chiei to join her at the concert of a band she is friendly with (they play American-style surf rock in the style of The Astronauts). 

 

Chiei is shocked to find that she enjoys it, and the two women become closer, but – just when it seems that Kazue might find some sort of stability at the temple – the head priest dies and is replaced by a younger man (Lone Wolf and Cub star Tomisaburo Wakayama). 

Tomisaburo Wakayama

 

Unfortunately, he seems to have gone to the Ganjiro Nakamura / Masao Mishima school of Buddhism* and exhibits rather too much enthusiasm for worldly pleasures, quickly developing an inappropriate interest in Chiei, who finds herself in an impossible position…

 

This Daiei production recycles elements of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (filmed by Kon Ichikawa as Conflagration) and Ayako Wakao’s earlier film The Temple of Wild Geese, but in those stories the troubled youth was a male. Michiyo Yasuda (in her first film for Daiei after starting out in a couple of films for Nikkatsu) is excellent, going from flaming-eyed fury in one scene to moving vulnerability in another before switching to cool calculation towards the end. She does all of these well, and it’s arguably more her film than it is Wakao’s. Following the success of this picture, Yasuda was immediately reteamed with Wakao for the excellent Freezing Point (1966), then went on to play the female lead in Yasuzo Masumura’s remake of A Fool’s Love the following year. 

 

Although Ayako Wakao’s performance is of her usual high standard, there is something of a disconnect between the way she plays her part and the words she has to say in a couple of the later scenes. In my opinion, the script is to blame for this as, despite the fact that Chiei is obviously supposed to be an intelligent woman, her actions are at times too foolish to be plausible. That’s a pity as this is otherwise a pretty good movie, well-made as one would expect from director Kenji Misumi.

  

*Ganjiro Nakamura and Masao Mishima played hypocritical priests in Conflagration (1958) and The Temple of Wild Geese (1962) respectively.