Why Did These Women Become Like This? / 何故彼女等はそうなったか / Naze kanojora wa so natta ka (aka Girls’ Reform School, 1956)

Obscure Japanese Film #163

Kyoko Kagawa and Masako Nakamura

This social conscience picture from Shintoho studios stars Kyoko Kagawa as Miss Oda, a kindly teacher at a reform school for wayward teenage girls that stands in the shadow of a castle. Among the girls are Hiroko (Masako Nakamura), a new arrival who comes from a wealthy family but has begun behaving badly after discovering that she was an illegitimate child; Yoneko (Akiko Mie), who is secretly pregnant; Tomiko (Konomi Fuji), whose good behaviour at the school sees her sent back home only to receive a cold reception from her stepmother (Wakako Kunitomo), causing her to run away again and end up back at the reformatory; and Chiyo (Junko Ikeuchi), who is in danger of being sold into prostitution to a brothel-keeper (Chieko Naniwa, who I’m sure has played this type of role in a number of films).

Chieko Naniwa

 

Somewhat surprisingly, the film was based on a 1952 novel by a male author, Toshihiko Takeda 1891-1961). However, he had some experience in these matters, having co-founded the Association for the Improvement of Children in 1947 and established an actual ‘Girls’ Home’ in 1949 in Muragame on the northern tip of Shikoku island. (Incidentally, Muragame does have a castle, although I’m uncertain if it’s the one we see in the film.)

 

Kyoko Kagawa

The supposed bad behaviour of the girls seems pretty mild today – this is not exactly a female Scum – but, then, writer-director Hiroshi Shimizu clearly wants us to view them with unreserved sympathy. The real bad behaviour is on the part of the uncaring parents, etc, who made them this way, and the unforgiving, self-righteous communities who deny them a second chance. The Japanese aphorism deri kugi wa utareru (‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down’) springs to mind here. 

 

Akiko Mie

The film certainly gets its message cross, but feels like fairly minor Shimizu. The religious-sounding choral music which sounds as if it has come from a corny Hollywood Christmas movie has not dated well, and the film misses a trick in failing to provide Miss Oda with any backstory, though Kyoko Kagawa gives her usual fine performance in a role similar to that which she played in the later picture The Human Wall (1959). The acting is pretty good across the board, in fact, though of the young actresses who play the girls only Junko Ikeuchi went on to stardom and sustained a long career.

Shimizu incorporates some symbolism into the film - the castle walls which form a backdrop for the opening credits suggest a safe place where the inhabitants are protected from the hostile world outside, while the girls' employment involves painting Okame masks, which represent a woman who brings good fortune to the man she marries. This is, of course, apt as the young women here are clearly hoping to emerge from the establishment with a more positive identity. 

Junko Ikeuchi and Masako Nakamura

 

Thanks to A.K.

The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty /憲兵とバラバラ死美人 / Kenpei to barabara shibijin (1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #52

Shoji Nakayama

 

Set in Manchuria in 1937, The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty opens with a Japanese soldier (whose face is concealed) having a secret liaison with a young Japanese woman (Akiko Mie). We then jump to a scene in which the (thankfully unseen) rotting torso of a pregnant woman is discovered in a well at a Japanese military barracks. The corpse has contaminated the army’s water; some rookies are forced to eat rice cooked in it by their seniors, but the latter also soon find themselves forced to eat the dodgy gohan, in their case by an indignant officer – karma in action! 

Just another day at the office for the Japanese Military Police

 

A military policeman, Tokusuke Kosaka (Shoji Nakayama), is sent from Tokyo to investigate the murder, but he meets with opposition from the local MPs. Despite having no evidence, they decide to pin the crime on the cook, Sergeant Tsuneyoshi (Shigeru Amachi), so they hang him upside down and try to whip a confession out of him. However, Kosaka begins to have visions of the dead woman which lead him to important clues and, eventually, the real murderer. 

I have a feeling I’ve just made this film sound more interesting than it actually it is – the story has potential, but the execution here is strictly routine and the cast unremarkable. The screenplay by Akira Sugimoto was based on a 1957 book by Keisuke Kosaka (1900-1972) entitled The Military Police Squirm: 68 Days of Headless Torso Investigation (Notautsu kenpei: Kubi nashi dōtai sōsa 68-nichi),  which appears to have been based on a true story. Kosaka, who had himself served as a military policeman in Manchuria and was the model for the character Kosaka in the film, has a pretty interesting bio – according to Japanese Wikipedia, he helped to save the life of the Prime Minister during the attempted military coup of 26 February 1936 and later received a death sentence as a war criminal due to his involvement in the execution of an American airman. However, he ultimately got away with serving a few years in prison before turning to writing after his release. One wonders how much we should trust such a person’s version of events – certainly, the film portrays Kosaka as the good guy and most of the other Japanese soldiers as brutes.   

More of a murder mystery than a horror film despite its title, The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty, is a modest B-movie unlikely to get pulses racing these days. However, it was enough of a hit at the time that the same studio (Shintoho) produced The Military Policeman and the Ghost (Kenpei to yurei) from an original screenplay the following year, again starring Shoji Nakayama in a similar role. For his part, director Kyotaro Namiki does a competent if uninspired job – his earlier Hirate Miki (1951) was a more impressive piece of work.

Watched without subtitles.

DVD at Amazon Japan