Obscure Japanese Film #128
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| Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao |
Asai (Jiro Tamiya) is
an artist who designs advertising posters for a printing company owned by
Koyonagi (Masao Mishima). As a loyal subordinate, Asai sometimes accompanies
his boss on his frequent excursions to the red light district. On one such
occasion, Koyonagi becomes smitten with a naïve young newcomer, Mayumi (Mariko
Kaga), and decides not only to make her his mistress but to persuade her to have
his baby. Unfortunately, Mayumi turns out to be not only stupid and vulgar but
stubborn and wilful to boot. Meanwhile, Asai becomes involved with bar hostess
Machiko (Ayako Wakao), who knows that he is married but wants to have his baby
and promises not to be a homewrecker. Asai’s wife is Michiko (Mariko Okada), a
calligraphy teacher who appears unable to have children herself. Asai begins to
find it increasingly complicated to continue satisfying the diverging demands
of his job, his wife and his mistress…
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| Mariko Okada |
The director of this
film, Tadashi Imai, was one of Japan’s most critically-acclaimed film
directors. However, after making Revenge
in 1964, his opportunities to helm feature films dried up for a while as the
industry as a whole was suffering an economic downturn, mainly due to so many
people having recently bought TV sets, initially to watch the 1964 Tokyo
Olympics. As a result, Imai spent a couple of years making television dramas
before returning to film work by directing the Ayako Wakao vehicle When the Sugar Candy Breaks (1967) for Daiei. Wakao herself
had recently had a success with The Wife
of Seishu Hanaoka (1967), based – like The
Time of Reckoning – on a novel by Sawako Ariyoshi, while her co-star in
this picture, Mariko Okada, had previously scored a hit with another film based
on an Ariyoshi novel, The Scent of
Incense (1964) and also been successfully teamed (or pitted against) Wakao
in Two Wives (1967). The Time of Reckoning, then, exists not
as a project initiated by Imai, but as a vehicle for Daiei’s stars, Wakao and
Okada, as well as Jiro Tamiya and Mariko Kaga. Personally, I detected little
trace of the earlier Imai in this film, which he seems to have approached
purely as a job of work – it looks in every respect like a typical Daiei drama
which could have been made by any one of their stable of directors.
This is the film which got Jiro Tamiya not only fired by Daiei, but blacklisted by the film industry when he had the temerity to complain about his billing below the three female stars despite the fact that he was clearly playing the lead role. This over-the-top reaction by the studio seems almost feudalistic, and I doubt they did themselves any favours as they lost not only a talented actor, but a popular film star. Tamiya’s character in this film is actually less of a scheming shit than those he often played – indeed, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for him here despite the fact that he’s no saint.
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| Mariko Okada |
For her part, Mariko Okada is
excellent as usual, but makes slightly less of an impact than the other two
female stars simply because her role gives her fewer opportunities.
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| Masao Mishima and Mariko Kaga |
The other Mariko, Mariko Kaga, is pretty funny playing a brainless bimbo who nevertheless has a mind of her own (an oxymoron with the emphasis on ‘moron’?), but it’s Wakao who really shines here. Although her character is for the most part quite placid, there are a couple of scenes in which she becomes emotional where you can see that Wakao is not merely ‘acting’, she’s really feeling it, as you can tell by the fact that you can even see her face visibly colouring at one point.
Perhaps that’s the main reason why she won
the 1969 Kinema Jumpo Award for Best Actress for this film, House of Wooden Blocks and One Day at Summer’s End. I should also
mention that there’s a nice cameo from the Woman
in the Dunes herself, Kyoko Kishida.
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| Kyoko Kishida |
With an easy listening jazz muzak score and an absence of any major tragedies, the tone of the film leans more towards comedy than drama, although it’s seldom laugh-out-loud funny. Instead, it opts for a similar gentle irony to that of the recently-reviewed Furin, another film in which the women get the better of a man who thinks he’s got his two-timing arranged perfectly. Things get pretty complicated and confusing towards the end and then the film finishes with an odd little non-ending (that I actually rather liked). It’s quite an enjoyable journey, but this is one film that will be best appreciated by fans of the stars rather than the director.
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| Mariko Kaga |
Bonus trivia: There
have been four TV versions, including a 1968 one with Keiju Kobayashi in the
Tamiya role and a 1984 one with Mariko Kaga switching roles to play Michiko.
There was also a 1969 stage version starring Keiju Kobayashi in which Mariko
Okada switched roles to play Machiko.
Note on the title: The Japanese title translates more accurately as ‘Time of Distrust.’
Thanks to A.K.
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