Oyafuko dori / 親不孝通り (1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #168

Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Yoko Katsuragi

 

Katsuya (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) is a cynical student who studies as little as possible, preferring to spend his time gambling, picking up women and getting drunk. He lives with his sister, Akie (Yoko Katsuragi), and is very protective of her, so, when he learns that she has had an abortion after becoming pregnant by Shuichi (Eiji Funakoshi), who refuses to marry her, he vows revenge. Katsuya discovers that Shuichi also has a sister, Kaneko (Hitomi Nozoe), and he decides to do the same to her…

 

Eiji Funakoshi and Hitomi Nozoe

 

This Daiei production tells a none-too-subtle story in which yet another woman falls in love with her rapist, which seemed to be a popular theme in Daiei films of this era. Unsurprisingly, it was written by a man – in fact, it was based on a story by Hiroshi Kawaguchi’s dad, Matsutaro Kawaguchi, who also happened to be executive director of Daiei. 

 

 

A little Hiroshi Kawaguchi goes a long way, in my opinion, and – unfortunately – there’s a lot of him to endure in this film. He can be good in comic roles on occasion, but his clumsy one-note performance here does nothing for the already unpromising material, while his future wife, Hitomi Nozoe, is saddled with a role in which she’s required to be naïve beyond belief. However, perhaps Kawaguchi could take comfort in the knowledge that his was not the worst performance in the film – that honour goes to the uncredited male ‘singer’ featured in a nightclub scene near the beginning, who appears to be trying to imitate American rock ‘n’ roll singers, but succeeds only in making a colossal arse of himself. 

 

 

The Japanese title translates as something like ‘Lack of Filial Piety Street’, which obviously doesn’t work in English, but is apparently an unofficial name used for certain streets in many Japanese cities where students congregate and behave badly. The film is sometimes listed as Disobedience, but I’m not sure that was ever an official English title and it doesn’t suit the movie very well. 

 

 

There might have been a good film to be made about a street frequented by students pursuing hedonism while they have the chance before having to buckle down to the salaryman life, but this ain’t it. A film about the absurdity of pursuing the tenet of an eye for an eye could also be a winner, but this ain’t that, either. It’s a film which wants to have its cake and eat it, and the contradiction inherent in a character who loves his sister and wants to protect her but will happily rape another woman to get revenge on somebody else is merely shrugged off. The incredibly flippant ending to the film delivers the coup de grace to one of director Yasuzo Masumura’s most dispensable works.

Thanks to A.K.