Obscure Japanese Film #280
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| Tsuzuya Moroguchi |
A 19-year-old engineering student, Toshihiko (Tsuzuya Moroguchi), falls in love with a stage actress (Yuriko Hanabusa) and writes her adoring letters, but when he finally summons up the courage to speak to her, she laughs at him and flings his letters back in his face. Heartbroken, he takes to wandering the country alone until he finally arrives in Hokkaido, where he collapses from hunger and exhaustion. He’s rescued by a shepherdess, O-Toyo (Yoshiko Kawada), whose father (Heijiro Osono) takes him in and gives him a job on the farm, but a fellow farmhand, Otokichi – known as ‘the Wolf’ – (Yotaro Katsumi), is jealous and wants to get rid of him…
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| Yoshiko Kawada, Moroguchi and Yotaro Katsumi |
Like the previously-reviewed film Diary of a Drunkard, this Shochiku Kamata production was directed by Zanmu Kako, but in this case the film seems to have survived more or less in its entirety. Also as in that film, Kako elicits natural performances and demonstrates a good eye for composition. However, the downside here is that the overly-contrived plot has dated badly and hinges on a couple of massively unlikely coincidences. It’s also somewhat confusing at times – perhaps at the time some accompanying benshi narration would have made things clearer.
Kohitsuji clearly has a strong Christian influence, even quoting the story of Jacob’s Ladder from the Book of Genesis in the opening and closing title cards, while in the Bible, the lamb is of course a symbol of innocence, purity and sacrifice, although it was unclear to me whether the lamb of the title is supposed to refer to Toshihiko or O-Toyo (or possibly neither). In any case, the rather uninspired message is simply that the wicked will eventually be punished and the good rewarded.
The film is thought to have been based on an unfinished screenplay by one Norikuni Yasuda, who has 19 director credits on IMDb between 1924-29, and shot by Hiroshi Nomura, who later worked for Hiroshi Shimizu, Heinsosuke Gosho and Yasushi Sasaki. The two leads, Tsuzuya Moroguchi and Yoshiko Kawada, were big stars of the day who were frequently cast together – here, they were about halfway through the (at least) 40 films in which they co-starred. However, it’s Yuriko Hanabusa who would go on to have the longest career, racking up 242 credits on IMDb stretching from 1920 until shortly before her passing in 1970. Among these are starring roles in Souls on the Road (1921), often cited as Japan’s first important film, and Naruse’s Wife! Be Like a Rose (1935).
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| Yuriko Hanabusa |
The director and cast came to films from the theatre, where they had worked not in kabuki or Noh, but in the new Western-influenced Shingeki (or Shin-engeki) movement. For further info (in Japanese) and to watch the film (without English subtitles), visit the Eiga Meets Shin-engeki website.
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