Kenka tobi / 喧嘩鳶 (‘Fighting Firemen,’ 1939)

Obscure Japanese Film #222

 

Kazuo Hasegawa

 

This Toho Eiga production was based on a newspaper serial novel by Kanji Kunieda (1892-1956), who specialised in stories set in the Edo period and also wrote the source novel upon which Mizoguchi’s  Utamaro and His Five Women (1946) was based. The story of Kenka tobi concerns the genuine historical phenomenon of the samurai firefighting gangs of the Edo period, who were often in fierce competition with each other. 

 

Isuzu Yamada

 

The film features four of the big stars of Japanese cinema in the late 1930s: Kazuo Hasegawa, Isuzu Yamada, Ranko Hanai and Yataro Kurokawa. Directed by Tamizo Ishida, who also made Fallen Blossoms (1938) and the previously-reviewed Flower-Picking Diary (1939), it was a big budget production originally released in two parts and featuring impressively large sets (much of which goes up in flames) and hundreds of extras. 

 

Ranko Hanai

 

Kenka tobi zenpen (‘Fighting Firemen Part 1’) ran 73 minutes and, while I was unable to find a reliable running time for Part 2 (Kenka tobi kohen), I think it’s safe to assume it was a similar length. What we are left with is an 89-minute version cobbled together from the two original parts, so it’s likely that nearly an hour has been chopped out, and there are certainly elements of the story that are a little unclear. 

 

Yamada and Hasegawa

What remains has Kichigoro (Hasegawa), a firefighter from the Kaga-tobi gang, coming to the rescue of Omon (Hanai) when some villains try to abduct her in the street. Omon is the sister of the Ha-gumi gang’s Jirokichi (Kurokawa). She falls in love with Kichigoro, but this is complicated as he belongs to the rivals of her brother’s gang (shades of Romeo and Juliet) and also because Koina (Yamada), a geisha who knows him as a client, is already in love with him…

 

Hasegawa and Yataro Kurokawa

 

Although it’s a meller aimed squarely at the box office, there’s a good deal of subtlety in Ishida’s direction here, and it’s really very well staged and shot throughout, while performances are free from the hamminess you might expect from this type of material. With so few early Japanese talkies available in such good quality before it mostly became military propaganda, Kenka tobi is a rare treat. I doubt that we’ll ever get to see the original two parts in full and would not be surprised if they no longer exist – it was quite common in the Japanese cinema at the time for studios to make two-part films, then edit them down to a single feature and apparently bin the rest. Other examples that spring to mind are Kon Ichikawa’s 365 Nights (1948) and The Burmese Harp (1956), and The Spider Man (1958).

A remake appeared in 1961 under the title Edokko-hada, directed by Masahiro Makino. 

 

Thanks to A.K. 

Watch on my YouTube channel here (with English subtitles) 

Dedication of the Great Buddha / 大佛開眼 / Daibutsu kaigen (1952)

 Obscure Japanese Film #186

Kazuo Hasegawa and Machiko Kyo

 

Nara, the then-capital of Japan, in the year 745. Kunihito (Kazuo Hasegawa) is a sculptor of rare talent. One day, after completing a huge sand sculpture by a river, he is upset when the oblivious Mayame (Machiko Kyo) walks over it to fetch water. An argument ensues in which they throw water at each other before going their separate ways. Sometime later, Mayame’s dancing attracts the attention of the lecherous Ogusu (Kenjiro Uemura), who follows her into the forest and tries to rape her, but she’s saved in the nick of time by Kunihito, who happened to be passing by. As a result, she immediately falls in love with Kunihito and becomes his girlfriend.

 

Eitaro Ozawa

Kunihito is recruited by the hunchbacked Kimimaro (Eitaro Ozawa, in a rare sympathetic role), who has been tasked with constructing a huge statue of the Great Buddha at Kinsho-ji (now Todai-ji) Temple and needs an assistant. Later, when Lady Sakuyako (Mitsuko Mito) sees some of Kunihiko’s work, she insists that he make a statue of her. Mayame, jealous of all the attention Kunihito is paying to both projects, decides to get revenge by sabotaging the Buddha statue…

 

Mitsuko Mito

 

This Daiei production was based on a play by Hideo Nagata (1885-1949) first published in 1921. Mizoguchi’s The Love of Sumako the Actress (1947) had also been based on a Nagata play and, in fact, even featured Tomo’o Nagai in a small role as Nagata himself. I don’t know how it compares to the original, but Ryuichiro Yagi’s screenplay seems, frankly, rather ludicrous, so it’s no surprise that Yagi failed to have a very successful career as a screenwriter despite being a respected playwright himself. 

 

Machiko Kyo

 

Presumably, having happened in the distant past, the actual personalities surrounding the construction of the Great Buddha are a bit of a mystery, but I’m willing to bet they didn’t include a vain and silly woman who spends most of her time dancing around a forest and mooning after a sculptor. Machiko Kyo does her best, but this may well be the worst role of her career. A lot of scenes feel too drawn-out, especially those featuring Kyo blubbering, of which there are many. Such sentimental nonsense must have seemed out of date even in 1952 and is not helped any by Ikuma Dan’s clichéd score. Intended as a prestige production and optimistically submitted to Japan’s Festival of the Arts as well as Cannes, it deservedly won nothing, but luckily director Teinosuke Kinugasa, together with stars Kazuo Hasegawa and Machiko Kyo redeemed themselves with the following year’s far superior Gate of Hell.

 

 

The Way of Drama / 芝居道 / Shibaido (1944)

Obscure Japanese Film #71

Kazuo Hasegawa

Set during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, this Toho production stars Kazuo Hasegawa as Shinzo, a young stage actor in Osaka whose newfound popularity playing military heroes has gone to his head. He has a sweetheart, Hanaryu (Isuzu Yamada), a shamisen player he is planning to marry, but his master, Heikichi (Roppa Furukawa), thinks he has become too arrogant and will never succeed in the long-term if he allows himself to be distracted by marriage. Heikichi decides to ask Hanaryu to break off the relationship for Shinzo’s own good… 

Isuzu Yamada

 

In his film The Song Lantern from the previous year, director Mikio Naruse had managed to avoid making military propaganda, but by this point it was a case of either spread the message the authorities wanted to put across or don’t make a movie. The Way of Drama was adapted by the prolific Toshio Yasumi based on a novel by Koen Hasegawa (1904-77). It’s unclear whether the propaganda aspect was present in the original, but the film certainly contains a rather obvious message about the importance of self-sacrifice. The character of Heikichi, the theatre director, is portrayed as a very noble man because he puts on plays about heroic soldiers and keeps ticket prices low so that as many people as possible will learn that the goal of destroying the enemy is far more important than one’s own paltry little life. Of course, this is unlikely to strike a chord with many viewers nowadays, but if we can ignore this aspect of the film, there are some pleasures to be found in the fine performances of Hasegawa and Yamada. Incidentally, the one scene in which Hasegawa is really bad is the opening scene in the theatre, where he plays a mortally wounded soldier delivering his patriotic last words as he expires – could Hasegawa and Naruse have been subtly taking the rise out of the military here?

Hasegawa and Eitaro Shindo

 

The supporting cast is also strong and features Takashi Shimura as a rival theatre director, Ranko Hanai as Heikichi’s cheerful daughter and Eitaro Shindo as a seasoned elder thespian. Directed by Naruse, it goes without saying that The Way of Drama is well-made, although working under the constraints and with the limited resources that he was at the time, it is obviously not one of his best. 

Takashi Shimura, Roppa Furukawa and Ranko Hanai