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| Machiko Kyo |
O-Koto (Machiko Kyo) is a young blind woman whose parents indulge her every whim out of pity. She takes a liking to Sasuke (Yoshiaki Hanayagi), a young apprentice supposed to be learning her family’s pharmaceutical trade, and it’s not long before he’s the only one she will allow to help her. Her parents decide to make Sasuke her full-time companion and he begins learning the shamisen so that he’ll be able to accompany her on her namesake instrument, the koto, at which she is proficient enough that her music teacher, Harumatsu (Sugisaku Aoyama), honours her by awarding her the name ‘Shunkin’. Love grows between O-Koto and Sasuke, but his low status as a servant makes him an awkward prospect for a potential husband and a wealthy would-be playboy (Eiji Funakoshi) sets out to seduce her…
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| Yoshiaki Hanayagi |
This Daiei production was the second film version of Junichiro Tanizaki’s novella A Portrait of Shunkin following Yasujiro Shimizu’s 1935 version starring Kinuyo Tanaka. Yet to come were Teinosuke Kinugasa’s 1961 version starring Fujiko Yamamoto, Kaneto Shindo’s eccentric 1972 take and Katsumi Nishikawa’s more commercial 1976 version. Having seen these five versions, this one gets my vote as the best, mainly because it’s so well-directed by Daisuke Ito, a filmmaker both bold and clever in the way he made use of a camera. Here, we get some complex tracking and crane shots as well as a brief, effectively jarring bit of handheld camera and even a couple of dramatic shots of faces coming so close to the lens that they block out the light. He also frequently fills the screen with extras performing bits of background business – set around the time of the Meiji Restoration when all manner of Western items began to make their appearance in Japan, at one point he even has a man passing by on a penny farthing followed by three children on stilts. Ito also provides some memorable moments of visual poetry, such as when O-Koto dances alone in the snow, believing herself unobserved.
The screenplay was written by Fuji Yahiro, whose impressive track record includes classics like Ito’s Five Men of Edo (1951), Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff (1954) and Uchida’s A Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (1955). It’s an excellent adaptation which adds another main character absent from the other versions – O-Ei, a fellow disciple of Harumatsu who is jealous of both O-Koto’s talent and her status as the teacher’s favourite. This character is played by Haruko Sugimura, who certainly helps to liven things up a bit at times, while Chieko Higashiyama’s narration preserves the literary flavour.
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| Haruko Sugimura |
Another plus is the strong score by Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube and the koto playing is more impressive and sophisticated in this version. Although Machiko Kyo was dubbed by one of Japan’s top players (Kiyoko Miyagi*), Kyo’s fingering is so convincing that it seems likely she must have been able to play it pretty well herself. Her co-star, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, was a stage actor who made few films, but had just played the juvenile lead in Sansho the Bailiff, while Eiji Funakoshi plays what can only be called a typical Eiji Funakoshi part.
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| Eiji Funakoshi |
Shunkin monogatari won the award for best film at the Southeast Asian Film Festival of 1955 (later renamed the Asia-Pacific Film Festival).
*You can listen to an album by Kiyoko Miyagi (aka Kiyoko Makise) on YouTube here.
DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)
English subtitles by Coralsundy
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