Obscure Japanese Film #221
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| Ineko Arima and Masahiko Tsugawa |
Wakako (Miyuki Kuwano), the daughter of corporation director and ministerial candidate Tazawa (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi), meets Onogi (Masahiko Tsugawa) by chance while exploring an ancient dwelling in Kamisuwa in Nagano Prefecture. Although she’s attracted to him, they go their separate ways and she assumes they’ll never meet again. However, sometime later she runs into him while he’s in the company of Yoriko (Ineko Arima), but Wakako is unsure about the nature of their relationship.
Miyuki Kuwano
It turns out that Yoriko and Onogi have been having an affair since they met by chance while watching a Russian theatre troupe perform The Lower Depths. When Onogi noticed that Yoriko, who happened to be sitting next to him, looked like she was going to vomit during the performance, Onogi – perhaps happy for an excuse to leave – escorted her out, and their relationship began.
Koji Nanbara and Kyoko Kishida
Yoriko is unhappily married to Yuki (Koji Nanbara), a political fixer who’s having multiple affairs of his own, including one with Hideko (Kyoko ‘Woman in the Dunes’ Kishida). Given that Onogi is a junior prosecutor, it’s no surprise that he ends up investigating Yuki in relation to a corruption case, and it just so happens that Wakako’s father is also involved, thereby guaranteeing much hand-wringing and misery for everybody involved…
Hiroshi Nihonyanagi
This Shochiku production was based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto published the same year and contains so many unlikely coincidences that it should have received some kind of booby prize for Most Contrived Plot. However, the book was a best-seller in Japan and was also adapted for TV no fewer than eight times. It was also said to have been responsible for making the Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji a popular suicide spot.
Ineko Arima
One expects better from director Noboru Nakamura, best known these days for The Shape of Night (1964), which also starred Miyuki Kuwano, although it’s the underrated Ineko Arima who’s the top-billed star here. Unfortunately, they’re both wasted in this, as are the rest of a mostly strong cast that also includes talented character actors Sadako Sawamura (as Wakako’s mother) and Ko Nishimura (as a slippery lawyer). There are some nice shots here and there, but overall this is easily the least impressive of the nine Nakamura films I’ve seen so far.
DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)
Thanks to A.K.
