Night Ladies / 二匹の牝犬 / Nihiki no mesu inu (‘Two Bitches’, 1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #278

Mayumi Ogawa

 

After Tokyo’s brothels have all been forced to close down by the authorities, ‘bath houses’ and ‘massage parlours’ spring up everywhere, unofficially offering more than just a back rub to their predominantly male clientele, but stopping short of providing the ‘full works’. Asako (Mayumi Ogawa), a country girl desperate to escape an unhappy family life and poverty in rural Chiba, gets conniving former madam Tetsu (Sadako Sawamura) to set her up with a job in such a bath house. Working under the name of Rie, she finds that she can make a lot of money quickly and begins investing through a young stockbroker, Sekine (Naoki Sugiura), who’s keen to take their relationship further. When Asako’s younger half-sister, Natsuko (Mako Midori), turns up, Asako tries to send her back to Chiba, but Natsuko is not only determined to stay but has no qualms about what she might have to do to pay her bills…

Naoki Sugiura

According to Japanese Wikipedia, this Toei production originated from an idea by producer Shigeru Okada, who felt that increasing the erotic content of the studio’s films would be one effective way of luring the dwindling audience away from their TV sets and back into cinemas. This was the studio’s first attempt at doing so, and Okada was proved to be correct as the film was a substantial hit. Of course, although it was strong stuff at the time, it seems fairly tame today compared to countless later films. Nevertheless, the subject matter and content meant that casting established stars in the two leading female parts was virtually out of the question.

Ogawa and Mako Midori

Mayumi Ogawa was a member of the Bungakuza Theatre Company, where she had a strict mentor in Haruko Sugimura. She had done some TV work, but only one previous film, Kaneto Shindo’s Mother (1963), in which she had played a minor role. In this film, Ogawa proves to have real acting ability and to be a strong, charismatic presence who can glower to great effect. She found it hard to shake off the ‘wicked woman’ image she got stuck with as a result, but went on to enjoy a long career before becoming a Buddhist nun in 2008, after which she went into semi-retirement. In 2012, her daughter published a book entitled Poison Mama – A 40-Year War with My Mother, Mayumi Ogawa, which led to their permanent estrangement. She passed away in March 2026 at the age of 86.

Mako Midori

Mako Midori, on the other hand, had taken a TV acting training course, but had not a single credit under her belt – apparently, director Yusuke Watanabe happened to see her photo and gave her a screen test. Despite concern at her lack of experience, she proved to be a natural and went on to win a Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Actress for her performances in this and Watanabe’s similarly-themed follow-ups, Akujo and Mesu (both also released in 1964). However, she was fired by Okada in 1968 for complaining about the types of roles she was given. By this point, though, she had become popular enough for her modern style and willingness to disrobe that she was in demand from other studios and continued to have a successful career.

Sadako Sawamura and Ogawa

As far as the rest of the cast are concerned, many of them, like Ogawa, were members of Bungakuza, who were apparently struggling financially at the time and therefore very glad of the work – in fact, this was likely a bargaining chip used by Okada to help persuade Ogawa to take on a controversial role. However, Sadako Sawamura was not affiliated with the company; usually a fine actor, unfortunately in this case she seems to have seen her role as a crafty old procurer as an excuse to go way over the top.

Ogawa and Sugiura

The original screenplay was written by director Watanabe together with Kikuma Shimoiizaka, whose filmography suggests prolific hack work. The story here hinges on a massive coincidence and things become increasingly melodramatic as the film goes on. Having said that, it’s somewhat remarkable for its undiluted misanthropy in its portrayal of a world in which everyone’s a scumbag; that’s far from unique in Japanese films of this period, but it was seldom seen in Hollywood ones – Sweet Smell of Success (1957) being a notable exception. There are also indications that Watanabe was trying to make something a little classier than expected, and there is some artiness in the camerawork, while, during the climactic catfight, the sound drops out and we hear only a plaintive Spanish guitar, lending a strange air of detachment to the proceedings. All in all, then, no masterpiece, but a well-made, entertaining and interesting film.

Ogawa

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Midori

The Beast Must Die: Mechanic of Revenge / 野獣死すべし 復讐のメカニック / Yaju shisubeshi: fukushu no mekanikku (1974)

Obscure Japanese Film #247

Hiroshi Fujioka

At the end of The Beast Must Die (1959), Kunihiko Date (Tatsuya Nakadai), a highly intelligent but amoral student leading a double life as a thief and murderer, escapes the clutches of the police and jets off to America. In this sequel (loosely based on author Haruhiko Oyabu’s 1960 sequel to his original book) he’s back from the States and is now a Moby Dick-obsessed literature professor, but is still killing and stealing in his spare time. Although it’s unclear whether exactly 15 years have passed in story terms, it does look like 1974, and he’s now played by the 28-year-old Hiroshi Fujioka (Nakadai – who had been playing a little younger than his real age in the first film – was 41 by this point and perhaps deemed too old. It should also be noted that he does not appear in this film despite a credit on IMDb).

Date, who was already pretty nasty, has become even nastier (burning a man’s face, casually killing a woman who’s helped him, etc) but has also been given a personal motive for his crimes. This time round he’s targeting the businessmen who drove his father to suicide and took over his company. In my view, despite the fact that this element seems to have been present in the book, this was a mistake – Date is someone who simply does not care about other people, so it makes no sense that he would care about his father so much that he would go to all the trouble he does here to get revenge (in the superior first film, Date does what he does because he views himself as a sort of Nietzschean superman above normal standards of morality).

Mako Midori

Hiroshi Fujioka, previously a supporting actor in movies but a star in TV, fails to make much of the character and, while the supporting cast are decent enough, they only have so much to work with. Mako Midori – something of a cult actress in Japan – is among them, but her screen time is limited and she has been better served in other films, such as Yasuzo Masumura’s The Great Villains (1968). Akemi Mari, who plays the other main female role, had been married to this film’s director, Eizo Sugawa, since 1969. She’s fine here, but her film career never really took off, although she had some success on TV.

Akemi Mari

The film is also rather cheap and drab-looking – I suspect that Toho had limited faith in it and only allowed Sugawa (who had also made the first film) a pretty low budget. Incidentally, Sugawa made other unrelated films with the word ‘beast’ in the title, including his previous film, Beast Hunt (1973, aka The Black Battlefront Kidnappers) and the excellent Beast Alley (1965).

On the plus side, the soundtrack features a cool combination of classical and jazz courtesy of composer Kunihiko Murai, who was better known as a producer of pop music, though he also composed the soundtrack for Tampopo (1985). Running a taut 86 minutes, the film also has an appealing leanness about it, and its misanthropic tone is certainly of a piece with its director’s other best-known works so, while it’s certainly not as good as the first film, it’s not a total wash-out. (Incidentally, one of the screenwriters, Yoshio Shirasaka, had also worked frequently with that other great misanthropic director of the era, Yasuzo Masumura).

Starring Yusaku Matsuda, Toru Murakawa’s 1980 remake of the 1959 original is more impressive (if more self-indulgent) than this sequel and recently received the deluxe Blu-ray treatment courtesy of Radiance Films, while a further remake and sequel (neither of which I’ve seen) appeared in 1997 starring Kazuya Kimura as Date.

It’s a bit low-res, but you can watch the film on YouTube with English subtitles here.

Hear part of Kunihiko Murai's original soundtrack on YouTube here.

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The Great Villains / 大悪党 / Dai akuto (1968)

Obscure Japanese Film #111

Mako Midori and Kei Sato

 

Yoshiko (Mako Midori) is a naïve country girl now living in Tokyo as a student. As she doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, her boyfriend gets frustrated and dumps her at a bowling alley. Seeing her left alone, Yakuza scumbag Yasui (Kei Sato) seizes the opportunity and slithers over to her. He takes her to a bar where he slips her a spiked drink, then takes her back to his apartment, rapes her and photographs her naked while she’s unconscious. When she awakes the next morning, he’s still asleep, so she leaves quietly, but within a few days he arrives at her apartment and shows her the photos, threatening blackmail. However, he offers to give her the negatives and all copies if she will sleep with pop idol Teruo Shima (Isao Kuraishi), explaining that Shima will pay him for providing a beautiful woman he can have no-strings sex with. Having no other choice, Yoshiko agrees but, when she goes to meet Shima, Yasui is hiding in the apartment filming them. Although Yasui keeps his promise and returns the photos and negatives to Yoshiko, she now has the film to worry about instead. Meanwhile, Yasui pays a visit to Shima to blackmail him, but Shima’s manager (Asao Uchida) hires unscrupulous lawyer Tokuda (Jiro Tamiya) to make the problem go away. Yasui finds that Tokuda is not easily intimidated – has  he finally met his match? 

Jiro Tamiya and Mako Midori

 

This Daiei production was based on the novel Akutoku bengoshi (‘Unscrupulous Lawyer’) by Masaya Maruyama (1926-2004), who also provided the source material for director Yasuzo Masumura’s A Wife Confesses (1961). The fact that Maruyama was himself a lawyer is unsurprising considering that Tokuda’s legal shenanigans in the film seem unusually well thought-out, even if certain other aspects of the story do not entirely convince, such as Yoshiko’s rather sudden transition at the end. Some of the violence is not terribly convincing either, and we have scenes of slapping where there is clearly no contact but the patented sound of what sounds like a whiplash on sheet metal is dubbed on.

It’s impossible not to feel sympathy for Yoshiko, which begs the question of whether the police would really be as rough on a woman in such circumstances as they are here. Even Yoshiko’s mother seems to care little for her daughter’s welfare, and is far more concerned that Yoshiko has disgraced the family. It’s debatable to what extent these elements reflect real cultural differences or are clichés common to Japanese drama – certainly, similar scenes can be found in many other Japanese films of the era.

Although not one of Yasuzo Masumura’s most impressive films, The Great Villains has a compelling story and three strong lead performances, with Jiro Tamiya in another of the slippery manipulator roles he played so well and Kei Sato resisting the temptation to chew the scenery as one of the most loathsome characters I’ve seen in a film for some time. Mako Midori, who resembles Mie Kitahara here, has probably the most difficult role and uses her eyes and body language most effectively in a part which gives her only limited opportunities for dialogue. She had just been fired from Toei at the time for complaining about the types of roles she was being obliged to play; she later went on to star in Masumura’s Blind Beast (1969).

The surprisingly stately classical music score by Tadashi Yamauchi suggests an attempt to lend the film both class and gravity, although Daiei’s dwindling budgets at the time are evident in the almost anonymous supporting cast and the fact that the work of Masumura’s regular cameraman Setsuo Kobayashi is less impressive than usual. Nevertheless, this is good second-tier Masumura worth seeking out for fans of the director, the three stars or Japanese crime dramas in general. 

 

Note on the title: As there are no plurals in Japanese, it is debatable whether the title should be translated as The Great Villains or The Great Villain. Perhaps because the film is also known as The Evil Trio, whoever gave the film its English title has chosen the plural version. However, while the character of Yasui clearly qualifies as a villain and this term could also be applied to that of Tokuda, it certainly doesn’t fit Yoshiko unless intended ironically.