River of Forever / 千曲川絶唱 / Chikumakawa zessho (‘The Great Poem of the Chikuma River’, 1967)

Obscure Japanese Film #266

Kinya Kitaoji

Kunie Tanaka

Goshogawa (Kinya Kitaoji) and Yujiro (Kunie Tanaka) are young truck drivers in Toyama. Having to drive to Niigata, they stop off to visit Yujiro’s sister, Yoshiko (Ayumi Ishida), who is in there with tuberculosis. Goshogawa finds himself attracted to a nurse, Nami (Yuriko Hoshi); meanwhile, Yujiro takes the opportunity to tell the doctor (Mikijiro Hira) that Goshogawa has been complaining about his gums bleeding recently. Examining Goshogawa, the doctor discovers that he has leukemia, but doesn’t tell him. However, Goshogawa soon learns the truth, and it emerges that he had been on a fishing boat near Bikini Atoll at the time of the US nuclear bomb test…

Yuriko Hoshi

Mikijiro Hira

This Toho production was based on an original screenplay by Hideko Takamine’s husband, Zenzo Matsuyama, who had a penchant for writing – and sometimes directing – what are somtimes termed ‘issue’ films; in other works, he tackled sensitive subjects such as forced emigration (Mother Country), dementia (The Twilight Years), and disability (The Happiness of Us Alone), some more successfully than others. Unfortunately, this is not an example of his better work, featuring as it does some clumsy – and corny – writing, and being really just a sentimental tearjerker at heart, with realism not on the agenda. (The most idiotic scene is the one in which the shouting policeman lets the cat out of the bag about Goshogawa’s illness).

Yuriko Hoshi

As one would expect from a film directed by Shiro Toyoda and lensed by his frequent collaborator, Kozo Okazaki, it’s very well shot and has some effective scenes – the one in which Goshogawa chases a train in his truck is a technical tour de force – but that’s not enough here, partly due to the deficiencies in the script, but also because there are other issues, too. Kinya Kitaoji and Kunie Tanaka overact shamelessly for the most part, although Kitaoji is effective in some scenes after the diagnosis, while Masaru Sato’s music tries rather too hard to tug at our heartstrings. The women in the cast fare better, but have a tough job given what they have to work with.

The film failed to win any awards, but it was a box office hit, and Kinya Kitaoji and Yuriko Hoshi were re-teamed the following year in Kitahodaka zessho, in which Kitaoji suffers from amnesia instead of leukemia, and again for 1969’s Tsugaru zessho, in which he suffered, I think, from general misfortune. Neither of these cash-ins had any involvement from Matsuyama or Toyoda.

As a footnote, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that, in Japan, it apparently used to be common for doctors not to inform patients if they had a terminal illness, although I believe that this has gradually changed over the last few decades.

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The Alaska Story / アラスカ物語 / Arasuka monogatari (1977)

Obscure Japanese Film #228

Kinya Kitaoji

This Toho production was based on a 1974 novel* by Jiro Nitta (1912-80), who also supplied the source material for the previously-reviewed Mount Hakkoda, another big movie shot on rugged locations and released the same year. Nitta’s novel was itself based on the life of Frank Yasuda (1868-1958), sometimes dubbed the ‘Japanese Moses.’ Yasuda emigrated to the USA as a young man and served on the USS Bear, a coast guard vessel which became entrapped in ice off the coast of Alaska in 1893. Sent to get help, he walked a vast distance before eventually collapsing, then was rescued by some Inuit in the nick of time. They sent a party to the aid of his shipmates, but Yasuda decided to remain with the Inuit and was taken under the wing of a man named Amaohka, who taught him whaling and hunting. Yasuda ended up marrying Amaohka’s daughter, Nebiro. However, when food became scarce in the area, Yasuda hooked up with Thomas Carter, an American gold prospector, hoping to strike it rich and make enough to lead his adoptive people to a better land (hence the ‘Japanese Moses’ moniker)…

Kyoko Mitsubayashi

Adapted for the screen by Masato Ide (known for his work with Kurosawa), the film follows Yasuda’s story quite closely, but throws in some fictional scenes to spice up the drama, such as the rather absurd but highly entertaining one in which a pack of wolves try to break into Yasuda’s cabin while his wife’s trying to give birth. There was an opportunity to make a more thoughtful, serious film here, but what we get is a disappointingly superficial entertainment. The director, Hiromichi Horikawa, was a former assistant to Kurosawa who made at least two very good films, The Lost Alibi (1960) and Shiro to kuro (1963), but failed to live up to that early promise.

Joe Shishido

Having said that, The Alaska Story was by no means a chore to sit through and remains worth a look for its breathtaking locations shot by cinematographer Kozo Okazaki, who worked with many of Japan’s top directors. Masaru Sato’s elaborate score is also inspired at times. Leading man Kinya Kitaoji was likely cast for his physical toughness and endurance rather than acting ability, but he’s adequate anyway. The only other Japanese character is played by Joe Shishido, who steals the show here as the forthright George Oshima, Yasuda’s real-life friend, who seems to have been a sort of wandering lone adventurer. Other well-known Japanese actors appear as Inuit, including Eiji Okada as Amaohka, Kyoko Mitsubayashi as Nebiro, and Hideo Gosha favourite Isao Natsuyagi, while Tetsuro Tanba pops up as a Native American chief – and I must say he does look the part! But the real star of this film is nature herself.

Tetsuro Tanba

As usual with Japanese films featuring Western characters (of which there are quite a few), the director appears to have just grabbed the nearest Westerners to fill these roles regardless of acting ability or experience, and they’re mostly terrible. The one honourable exception is William Ross, who plays Tom Carter, and is quite decent. Ross was an American who emigrated to Japan and found work in the film industry in many capacities, but basically whenever a gaijin was needed.

William Ross

Those who enjoy tales of real-life adventure may well enjoy this film, but a word of warning for animal-lovers – it looks like Kitaoji killed a seal for real in one scene, and there’s also a sequence featuring a whale hunt which I don’t think was faked. As the British Board of Film Censors prohibits such scenes, I suspect that this is the reason why the film has had no UK release that I know of.

* An English translation was published in 1980 as An Alaskan Tale

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The Face of an Actor – The Life and Films of Tatsuya Nakadai 

(ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09HFS96CC)  

Rise, Fair Sun / 朝やけの詩 / Asayake no uta (‘Poem of the Morning Glow’, 1973)

 

Tatsuya Nakadai

 

The Shinano Plateau, Nagano. Left without a position after Japan’s defeat, former naval officer Sakuzo (Tatsuya Nakadai) is now a comparatively poor but hard-working and extremely proud farmer with a teenage daughter, Haruko (Keiko Takahashi), and two younger children, all of whom he is raising by himself. His wife, Yaeko (Kaneko Iwasaki), seems to have been unable to bear the drudgery, has developed a drinking problem and left him for an easier life, shacking up with Kamiyama (Yosuke Kondo). He’s the president of Apollo Tourism, who want all the farmers in the area to clear out so they can use the land to build a holiday resort. As the farmers are all in debt to local bigwig Inagi (Shin Saburi), Kamiyama conspires with him to make them an offer they can’t refuse, but some – like Sakuzo – prove inconveniently stubborn. When land surveyors are sent in, violence breaks out… 

 

Kaneko Iwasaki and Keiko Takahashi

 

Rise, Fair Sun was a co-production between Toho and Haiyuza, the theatre company to whom Nakadai and a number of his fellow cast members (including Kaneko Iwasaki and Yosuke Kondo) belonged. The film was directed by Kei Kumai and based on his original screenplay, co-written with the little-known Akiko Katsura and the slightly better-known Hisashi Yamanouchi, who had worked on three of Shohei Imamura’s early pictures. Like many of Kumai’s films, it has an obvious left-wing, social conscience theme. 

 

Shin Saburi and Nakadai

 

In the early 1970s, many Japanese feature films returned to using the old academy ratio that the studios had originally abandoned around 1957, and this film is one example of such. As I understand it, this was mainly done because it was cheaper and the studios’ profits were diminishing, but I also wonder whether it may have been related to the more TV-friendly nature of the academy ratio as the sale of films to television after their cinema run was more of a concern by this point. In any case, it’s part of the reason why Rise, Fair Sun has something of a TV miniseries feel to it. However, that’s not to say that the film fails to impress visually – mostly shot on location, it features some beautiful scenery and attractive cinematography by Kozo Okazaki (Goyokin, Inn of Evil) which includes a spectacular shot of Haruko and her young lover silhouetted against the sun towards the end. Another plus is the score by Kumai’s regular composer, Teizo Matsumura, which is refreshingly free from the usual clichés. 

 

 

The film is generally very sympathetic to Sakuzo despite the clear suggestion that his wife has been a victim of domestic violence, an implied additional motivation for her absence. Like Toshiro Mifune in Redbeard, there’s a scene in which Nakadai appears to forget that he’s not in a samurai movie and launches a one-man attack on multiple opponents – in this case grabbing a surveying pole and going into full Sword of Doom mode on the unfortunate surveyors. As if to compensate for this violent side, he tries to save a bloated cow (by stabbing it!) and, while digging on his land, he discovers an ancient pot from the Jomon people (who were believed to have lived in harmony with nature to a remarkable degree). This instantly turns his farm into a major archaeological site, and when a Jomon face sculpture is dug up, he declares it better than anything in the Louvre (which he has apparently visited while in the navy). This unexpected plot thread is quickly dropped, but – with symbolism not too hard to decipher – we will later see a shot of a bulldozer carelessly running over another piece of Jomon pottery. 

 

 

 

 

The film marked veteran star Shin Saburi’s return to the big screen after an absence of 12 years, during which time he had been very active as both an actor and director in television. It was his first film opposite Nakadai and there’s a memorable confrontation scene between the two, who were reunited the following year in Satsuo Yamamoto’s The Family. Nakadai had known his other co-star, Kaneko Iwasaki, since the very beginning of his acting career and the two had appeared in a number of films together. Though she has seldom had leading roles in feature films, Iwasaki is the official representative of Haiyuza at the time of writing and remains a highly respected stage actor who played the King Lear equivalent in Haiyuza’s 2024 production Dokoku no Ria (‘Lear’s Lament’). 

 

 

 

 

 

The production of the film was overshadowed by the publicity around the nude swimming scene featuring an 18-year-old Keiko Takahashi – then known as Keiko Sekine – who had already been a popular star for a couple of years at this point. Although the inclusion of such a scene may have been a cynical move by the producers, it was tastefully shot by Kumai, but in any case it was not enough to make Rise, Fair Sun a hit either at the box office or with the critics. Though screened in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, it failed to win any prizes. This is not too surprising as, despite some good work in a number of departments, it’s basically a noble effort which doesn’t quite gel – mainly, I think, due to the flawed script and somehow unconvincing characters. In my view, stories of this type often work better with a more Ken Loach-type approach, in which the use of improvisation by a cast of mainly non-professionals can be more effective.

The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) Film Library in Californiaa has a 35mm print of this film with English subtitles

Thanks to A.K.

 

Sweet Sweat / 甘い汗 / Amai ase (1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #155

Machiko Kyo

Kyo with Sadako Sawamura

Umeko (Machiko Kyo) is a 36-year-old unmarried mother of a teenage daughter, Takeko (Miyuki Kuwano). They live in poverty in a cramped dwelling shared with her brother’s family and their mother (Sadako Sawamura). Umeko is used to trading on her looks in various ways to get by but has an unfortunate habit of drinking too much. She thinks she has it made when sleazy bartender Fujii (Shoichi Ozawa) fixes her up with wealthy art dealer Gondo (Eitaro Ozawa), who intends to make her his long-term mistress, but Gondo kicks her out when he discovers that she has not been entirely straight with him. Another chance of salvation seems to present itself when she runs into old flame Tatsuoka (Keiji Sada), but this is a world in which there are no fairly tale endings… 

 

Kyo with Shoichi Ozawa

On 1 July 1964, Fuji TV broadcast an original 1-hour drama entitled Abura deri (‘Oily Weather’) as part of their Theatre of 10 Million People series. Marking the first appearance of Machiko Kyo in a TV drama, it was written by Yoko Mizuki, a screenwriter known for her collaborations with film directors Mikio Naruse and Tadashi Imai. Sweet Sweat, released on 19 Sep 1964, is an expanded version of the same story with a screenplay also written by Mizuki. It’s impressive that Tokyo Eiga, the studio that produced it, were able to have an entirely new 2-hour version in cinemas just three and a half months later, especially as their film betrays no sign of having been knocked out in a hurry. On the contrary, it gives the impression of having been made with a great deal of care and attention to detail by everyone involved, not least Shiro Toyoda, a director known for bringing a high level of visual flair to his films, many of which were literary adaptations. 

Kyo with Eitaro Ozawa

 

Yoko Mizuki won a Kinema Junpo Award for Best Screenplay for this film, while Kyo deservedly won both the Kinema Junpo Award and the Mainichi Film Award for Best Actress. She’s first seen here having a drunken cat-fight with another bar hostess, but we quickly learn that Umeko herself is a consummate actress – when she puts on her best kimono and visits Gondo for the first time, he’s initially convinced that she really is the demure victim of misfortune she appears to be. It’s the type of role that’s a gift for an actress, and Kyo is a joy to watch when she gets a role like this one that doesn’t require her to be too restrained. 

Kyo with Keiji Sada

 

It’s also interesting to see Keiji Sada subverting his usual nice guy image in his final film role before his untimely death in a car crash. Sada seemed keen to stretch himself in his later films – Escape from Hell being another example – so it would have been interesting to see what he would do next had he lived. At one point in Sweet Sweat, his character even throws salt at Umeko as if she’s an evil spirit he must ward off, though she would perhaps be more justified in throwing salt at him. Also notable in the cast is 22-year-old Miyuki Kuwano, who is entirely convincing as a 17-year-old high school student. Although this may not seem much of an acting feat, when compared with her leading role in The Shape of Night the same year, it becomes obvious that she was also a versatile talent. 

 

Kyo with Miyuki Kuwano

Mostly set in the run-down Tokyo neighbourhood of Shimokitazawa, then being torn apart for redevelopment, this is a terrific film with a tangible atmosphere of discomfort; everyone seems to be constantly fanning themselves or wiping the sweat off. It also benefits from the nicely unintrusive music score by Hikaru Hayashi and excellent cinematography of Kozo Okazaki. Newly released on DVD in Japan, this is a film ripe for rediscovery and one which I think will start to receive more attention in the near future.

 

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)