Women and Miso Soup / 女と味噌汁 / Onna to misoshiru (1968)

Obscure Japanese Film #139

Junko Ikeuchi

Chikako (Junko Ikeuchi) is a geisha who works under the name of Temari. Such an occupation gives her a very low social status, but she has managed to retain her self-respect, restricting herself to entertaining her customers and not sleeping with them as some do. However, though she never allows herself to indulge in self-pity, Chikako is not entirely satisfied with her lot and wants to become less dependent on the whims of men. As she always receives compliments for the miso soup she makes based on her grandmother’s recipe, she decides to start a small business selling the soup and accompaniments from a mobile van.

Kei Sato

 

Kunie Tanaka

Attending a class reunion, she reconnects with some old school friends: Murata (Kei Sato), a self-confident and apparently successful businessman; Ogawa (Kunei Tanaka), who makes a modest living carrying on his father’s occupation of making geta (traditional wooden sandals); and Kazuyo (Etsuko Ichihara), who has four children and another on the way and is forced to supplement her husband’s income by trying to sell life insurance on commission. 

Keizo Kawasaki

 

Murata and Ogawa both seem keen to be more than just friends with Chikako, but she’s more interested in Kiritani (Keizo Kawasaki), a salaryman she meets while working. However, this is a world in which even the nice guys shouldn’t be entirely trusted…

Aiko Nagayama

 

Another incident which complicates Chikako’s life is the unexpected arrival of a half-brother she didn’t know she had, Tomoichiro (Masakazu Tamura), who is studying to be a doctor. Chikako’s young friend and colleague Komomo (Aiko Nagayama) falls in love with him, but when Tomoichiro and Komomo begin talking of marriage, Chikako finds herself reacting with resentment at the idea of her brother marrying a lowly geisha. Having suffered from spending her own life in a society where the most important thing is what other people think of you, her kneejerk reaction is hypocritical, but – to her credit – she comes to realise this.

 

This Tokyo Eiga production was based on a 1965 novel by Yumie Hiraiwa which had already been successfully adapted for TV in a version which also starred Junko Ikeuchi and Aiko Nagayama in the same roles. Although Women and Miso Soup is the sort of character-driven comedy-drama that had largely disappeared from the big screen in Japan by 1968, and is also the last live-action feature film* by director Heinosuke Gosho (then 65), surprisingly it doesn’t feel like an 'old man’s movie' at all. Admittedly, there is one character, Ogawa’s father (Eijiro Tono), who complains about the ‘youth of today’ at some length but, while he may have a point in some of the things he says, he’s basically portrayed as a grumpy old git. In regard to the younger generation, Komomo and Chikako’s other young female friend, Kikuko (Akemi Kita), may initially seem vacuous, but the film softens its attitude towards them as it progresses. A scene which occurs late in the film has them dancing to rock music from a transistor radio at the beach as Chikako looks on and smiles approvingly, implying that this is a perfectly valid way to enjoy their time. While the film certainly celebrates the traditional aspects of Japanese life, other scenes show that the young are perfectly capable of appreciating these too if given the chance. 

 

Headed by Beast Alley’s Junko Ikeuchi and filled out mainly by members of the Haiyuza theatre company, the cast give strong performances all round and make the most of an intelligent script in which, refreshingly, scenes do not always play out in the way one might expect (e.g. the confrontation scene between Chikako and a certain character’s wife). And while this may not be a film to wow you with its camerawork particularly, Gosho’s co-ordination of his actors is impressive and shows that he still had a sure hand.

*Gosho made an animated feature film using puppets shortly after this one and later a half-hour documentary before passing away in 1981.

She Came for Love / 女が愛して憎むとき / Onna ga aishite nikumu toki (‘When a Woman Loves and Hates’, 1963)

Obscure Japanese Film #138

Ayako Wakao

Toshiko (Ayako Wakao) is the madam of a bar in Osaka who tries to keep her private life private and claims not to have a lover. However, she is in fact having a secret affair with Ozeki (Jiro Tamiya), a concert promoter who specialises in booking American artists and dreams of bringing Elvis to Japan. Ozeki is married and reluctant to leave his wife (Tazuko Niki), as she can speak English, which is very helpful to his business. Toshiko is well aware of all this but is apparently satisfied with the arrangement. 

Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao

 

Although Toshiko’s bar is successful and she is a popular hostess, problems begin to arise. Her despised ex-husband (Akihiko Katayama) reappears and keeps bugging her; one of her employees, Nobuko (Kyoko Enami), is being a bit too flirtatious with the customers; Ozeki is making some risky deals and getting in over his head; and her former boss and mentor, Rie (Mitsuko Mori), is unhappy with her because Toshiko’s cheap whisky is tempting customers away from Rie’s bar…

Kyoko Enami

 

At times watching this, I was reminded of Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), which is understandable as not only does this Daiei production cover similar territory, but it turns out that, like Naruse’s film, it also has an original screenplay by Ryuzo Kikushima (a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa). The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven – something which is a major strong point of the script for me, and gives Wakao an excellent role which she plays to perfection. Toshiko undergoes a rather bitter inner journey and is not the same person at the end of the film that we met at the beginning. She Came for Love may well be a case of the script and cast being more important than the director, though the little-known Sokichi Tomimoto handles all aspects well. In any case, it’s a fine film which deserves to be better-known, and it should be a must for all fans of Ayako Wakao.

Mitsuko Mori

 

Although quite famous in her home country, Mitsuko Mori (who plays the important role of Rie so convincingly) is unlikely to be familiar to many non-Japanese viewers as she had a patchy film career, first appearing in 58 films between 1935 and 1941, most of which were undistinguished B-pictures. After a long hiatus from the big screen, she made two films in 1957, and then worked in films fairly steadily – mainly in supporting roles – from 1961 until the early 1970s. However, during most of her periods of absence from the cinema she was busy with radio, television and stage work. Her signature role was as author Fumiko Hayashi in the stage version of Hayashi’s autobiographical work, A Wanderer’s Notebook; she performed this over 2,000 times from 1961, although when Mikio Naruse filmed it the following year, it was Hideko Takamine who won the part. No surprise, then, that Mori never went on to make a film with Takamine, although Naruse subsequently employed her for a part in his final film, Scattered Clouds (1967). 

 Thanks to A.K., and to Coral Sundy for the subtitles, which can be found here. 

 DVD at Amazon Japan.

The Invisible Wall / 眼の壁 / Me no kabe (‘Wall of Eyes’, 1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #137

Keiji Sada

Masao Oda

 

This Shochiku production stars Keiji Sada as Hagisaki, the deputy head of an accounts department whose boss, Sekino (Masao Oda), commits suicide. Hagisaki receives a letter from the dead man explaining that he felt it was the only way to take responsibility for losing 30 million yen of the company’s money as a result of a scam. 

Ko Nishimura

 

Shinji Takano

Despite being warned by the company’s lawyer, Segawa (Ko Nishimura), not to interfere, Hagisaki takes it upon himself to investigate and joins forces with his friend Tamura, a journalist (Shinji Takano). Their clues lead them first to the Red Moon bar on the Ginza, and eventually to a mountain village in Nagano. 

Fumio Watanabe and Jun Tatara

 

Yachiyo Otori

Jun Usami

 

Among the other people involved in the mystery are bartender Yamamoto (Fumio Watanabe), a private detective (Jun Tatara), a moneylender’s secretary named Etsuko (Yachiyo Otori) and right-wing politician Funasaka (Jun Usami), but it proves to be a crusty old villager (Bokuzen Hidari) who provides the key to the mystery before events reach a gruesome climax involving an acid bath… 

Bokuzen Hidari

 

Based on a novel of the same name by popular mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto, this story is typical of the author’s work, but not one of the best adaptations of it. Masayoshi Ikeda’s suspenseful music score helps, but the story is allowed to become a little too complicated for its own good and fails to maintain the interest as a result. 

 

It also doesn’t help that the hero, Hagisaki, is such a blank slate of a character – Keiji Sada was a good actor, but he’s given very little to work with here, which is at least partly his own fault as he was a big enough star to have made changes if he had cared to. It’s competently but rather indifferently directed by Hideo Oba, best known for his What Is Your Name? trilogy (1953-54), which also starred Keiji Sada, but the proceedings are occasionally enlivened by some of the excellent character actors who pop up along the way.  

Yachiyo Otori

 

Leading lady Yachiyo Otori had been a stage star for the Takarazuka theatre company; this was her first film under contract to Shochiku. She makes little impact here, although it’s not much of a role, to be fair. Her film career never really took off and she had more success on stage and television. At the time of writing, she’s still alive at the age of 91.