Brand of Evil / 悪の紋章 / Aku no monsho (1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #229

Tsutomu Yamazaki

 

Kikuchi (Tsutomu Yamazaki, the kidnapper from High and Low) is a police detective investigating the murder of a young woman. The trail leads to company boss Shibata (Rokko Toura), but he suddenly finds himself falsely accused of accepting bribes from a drug dealer and is kicked out of the police force and sent to prison for two years. After his release, he manages to find work with a private detective agency on condition that he drops any notion of trying to clear his name. He agrees, then promptly sets about trying to clear his name, during the course of which he finds himself involved with Setsuko (Michiyo Aratama), a young woman he sees falling victim to a pickpocket on the subway…

 

Michiyo Aratama

This co-production between Toho and Takarazuka Eiga was based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Shinobu Hashimoto, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sakae Hirosawa and the director, Hiromichi Horikawa. Horikawa and Hashimoto had previously collaborated on The Lost Alibi (1960) and Shiro to kuro (1963), two similarly dark and twisty crime thrillers, and both had begun their film careers under the tutelage of Kurosawa. The master’s influence is apparent here in the way certain scenes are shot and the use of weather to heighten atmosphere. In fact, the moody high-contrast cinematography comes courtesy of Yuzuru Aizawa, who had shot The Bad Sleep Well (1960). Another asset is a strong jazz score by one of Japan’s top composers, Toshiro Mayuzumi, while the excellent cast also includes Kyoko ‘Woman in the Dunes’ Kishida, Keiji Sada and, wasted in a tiny role as the head of the detective agency, Takashi Shimura. 

 

Hashimoto’s view of the world tended towards the misanthropic, and none of the characters in Brand of Evil are terribly nice. In fact, one of the most memorable scenes involves the supposed hero torturing a hapless yakuza stooge to the strains of a Strauss waltz (‘Rosen aus dem Süden’), which reminded me of the way Tarantino used ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ in Reservoir Dogs, although Tarantino certainly took it to another level. 

 

Keiji Sada and Tsutomu Yamazaki

In my view, the film is slightly less effective than The Lost Alibi or Shiro to kuro because the combination of the lack of a sympathetic protagonist combined with a rather convoluted plot and slightly excessive running time of around two hours and eleven minutes makes it hard to feel emotionally invested in the story all the way to the end. It’s also hard to forgive the demeaning portrayal of a disabled character, Setsuko’s friend Tsuyako, played by Toshiko Yabuki. 

 

Rokko Toura

 

Towering Waves / 波の塔 / Nami no to (1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #221

 

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.

The School of Flesh / 肉体の学校 / Nikutai no gakko (1965)

Kyoko Kishida

 

Taeko (Kyoko ‘Woman of the Dunes’ Kishida) is a wealthy, aristocratic and self-confident Tokyo fashion designer who visits a gay bar, where she is attracted to younger, proletarian bartender Senkichi (Tsutomu Yamazaki, the kidnapper from High and Low), whom she asks out on a date. The rumour that he’ll sleep with absolutely anyone for money fails to put her off, but she’s taken aback when he turns up wearing geta (wooden sandals), chews with his mouth open and takes her to a pachinko parlour, but she soon gets over it and the two embark on a relationship. However, when her friends ask her if Senkichi is kind to her, she realises that she can’t think of a single example of his showing such a quality and begins to feel somewhat insecure in their relationship. But it turns out that Senkichi is actually far more conventional than he pretends to be…

 

Tsutomu Yamazaki

 

This Toho production was based on a novel of the same name by Yukio Mishima first published in 1963 in serial form in a magazine called Mademoiselle. Although it has yet to be translated into English,* this appears to be a very faithful adaptation and Mishima is on record as being highly pleased with it. The author’s obsession with physical beauty and the psychology of infatuation are much in evidence, but the protagonists are both hard to like and I can’t say that I personally found the story very engaging. Most of the drama comes from the shifting balance of power in their relationship.

 

What really makes this film worth seeing, however, is the striking visual style that director Ryo Kinoshita (b.1931) and his cameraman Yuzuru Aizawa (who also shot The Bad Sleep Well) bring to it. Kinoshita was a former assistant to Yuzu Kawashima (and no relation to Keisuke Kinoshita as far as I’m aware). The rest of his brief filmography looks pretty routine, but he was one of those directors whose career began a little too late, leaving him few opportunities to show what he could do for the cinema before he was forced to move into television instead. In fact, part of the reason for the move in his case may have been that the bigwigs at Toho were, apparently, displeased with the arty visuals in The School of Flesh. However, in my opinion, the use of deep focus, unusual camera angles and bold lighting effects makes this film a visual treat throughout. 

 

 

The age discrepancy between the two characters is less pronounced than in the book, which describes Taeko as being 39 and Senkichi 21 – at the time of the film’s release, Kishida was 34 and Yamazaki 28. The two stars had both been members of the Bungakuza theatre company and knew each other well. Another person associated with Bungakuza was Yukio Mishima himself – the company had staged a number of his plays, often featuring Kishida, an actress who was both admired and befriended by the writer.

*The novel has appeared in French and also provided the basis for the French film L’ecole de la chair (1998) starring Isabelle Huppert.

Thanks to A.K. 

 

 

Ths Shogun and His Mistresses / 大奥(秘)物語 / Ooku maruhi monogatari (‘Secret Tales of the Inner Palace’, 1967)

Obscure Japanese Film #188

Masaya Takahashi

 

Three stories set in the vast and labyrinthine inner chambers of Edo Castle during the reign of the sixth shogun, Ienobu Tokugawa, who held the title from 1709-12. (Nearly 50 at the time, Tokugawa is portrayed here as a somewhat younger man by the 37-year-old Masaya Takahashi.) With the exception of the shogun, only women are permitted in the inner palace, where power plays and factional battles are the norm… 

 

Junko Fuji (left) and Reiko Hagi

 

In the first story, Fusa (Reiko Hagi) is brought to the castle at the request of concubine Okon (Junko Miyazono), who is in poor health and no longer able to bear children, in the hope that she will catch the eye of the shogun and have his child, thus weakening the position of the rival faction of women headed by Osume (Naoko Kubo). However, the shogun prefers the maid that Fusa brought with her instead, Omino (Junko Fuji). But when Osume gets pregnant first, Omino conspires with Okon’s senior attendant Matsushima (Isuzu Yamada) to get pregnant secretly by another man and claim that it’s the shogun’s child…

 

Kyoko Kishida (left) and Tomoko Ogawa

In the second story, the shogun has his eye on the innocent Shinonoi (Tomoko Ogawa) for his next bed partner, but she enters into a lesbian relationship with her mistress, Urao (Kyoko Kishida, in another lesbian role after Manji). But Shininoi has no choice but to obey when summoned to the shogun’s boudoir, which leads Urao to become dangerously jealous… 

 

Kaneko Iwasaki (lying) and Yoshiko Sakuma

 

In the third story, Ochise (Yoshiko Sakuma), a maid to senior lady-in-waiting Asukai (Kaneko Iwasaki), is about to finish her three years of indentured servitude, after which she plans to leave the castle and marry fabric dyer Chokichi (Kunio Murai). No prizes for guessing what happens when she too catches the eye of the lustful shogun…

 

Kunio Murai and Yoshiko Sakuma

 

This Toei production was based on an original screenplay with four contributors, none of whom are especially well-known. Its director, Sadao Nakajima, started out as an assistant director around 1959 at Toei’s Kyoto studios – which meant that most of the films he worked on early on had period settings – before directing his first film, Female Ninja Magic, in 1964. With this debut, he (together with Kyoto studio head Shigeru Okada) was responsible for introducing a new eroticism to the jidaigeki (costume drama) genre, something which is also in evidence in The Shogun and His Mistresses. Although these films were classified as ‘for adults only’ at the time, it should be noted that they were not pornographic, though other filmmakers would copy the template and add nudity and more explicit sex scenes in the years to come. As is often the case, Nakajima’s career was more schizophrenic than that of many directors in the West, and went on to encompass a wide range of material from yakuza flicks and sex documentaries to more highbrow (or at least middlebrow) period dramas. His Meiko Kaji vehicle Jeans Blues: No Future (1974) has a minor cult following, while his passion project The Seburi Story (1985) was nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Nakajima’s career as a feature film director ended in the late 1990s, but not quite – he can be seen playing the part of a director at Toei Kyoto studios (much like himself) in Uzumasa Limelight (2014) and returned to the director’s chair one last time at the age of 84 for Love’s Twisting Path (2018) before passing away in 2023. 

 

Isuzu Yamada and Junko Fuji

 

The most striking direction in this film occurs towards the end of the first story, when Omino arrives at the secluded house with the aim of being impregnated by a stranger and we hear the cries of the cicadas reaching fever pitch on the soundtrack before we get a POV shot from the bottom of a well down which the old lady who owns the house drops her bucket. No other scene is quite as memorable, but it’s a strong film overall, although not without its technical flaws – the wire attached to a fake firefly is visible at one point, while more depth of focus would have been preferable in some scenes, when the actors in the background are reduced to blurry blobs. 

 

Tomoko Ogawa and a blurry Kishida

 

But these niggles are more than made up for by the quality cast, excellent score by Hajime Kaburagi (which utilises traditional instruments to great effect) and the fact that, with all the colourful kimono on display, this is exactly the type of film that benefits most from colour cinematography. The film was a huge hit, which not only spawned two sequels directed by Nakajima, but created a whole new subgenre of female-oriented jidaigeki which came to be known in Japan as ‘Ooku’ (inner palace) stories and would include the previously reviewed Tales of the Inner Chambers. 

 

Isuzu Yamada

 

Bonus trivia:

Most of the young actresses featured in the film had never worn the type of kimono known as uchikake before, so jidaigeki veteran Isuzu Yamada (on loan from Toho) had to spend half a day training them how to walk without falling over. 

Director Tadashi Imai was originally attached to the project, but his reluctance to emphasise the erotic aspects of the story led to him being taken off it by studio head Shigeru Okada.

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles) 

 

Kyoko Kishida