The Women around the Shogun / 続大奥 (秘) 物語 / Zoku ooku maruhi monogatari (‘Secret Tales of the Inner Palace Sequel’, 1967)

Obscure Japanese Film #258

Tomoko Ogawa

This Toei production is a sequel to The Shogun and His Mistresses of the same year, and I recommend reading my review of that film first, even though this one has an entirely separate story.

It’s now 1786 and the 10^th shogun, Ieharu (Masao Mishima), is in power. Ochisa (Tomoko Ogawa), the adopted daughter of Lord Abe (Eitaro Ozawa), is sent to serve the shogun at Edo Castle, where her older sister Oshino (Hiroko Sakuramachi) is one of the shogun’s concubines. It’s not long before Ochisa is forced into the same position, but the sisters try not to become enemies despite the bitchy machinations of the other women around them. However, when the shogun suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, Ochisa finds herself sent to a nunnery with the other concubines, where they’re expected to spend the rest of their lives praying for Ieharu’s soul. The head nun (Chieko Hagashiyama) ensures that the women are cut off from the outside world with the result that one goes mad, another turns to lesbianism and a third starts an affair with a priest – but what will become of Ochisa?

Ogawa with Masao Mishima

Dropping the anthology structure of the first film and released just three months later, it’s no surprise that this rushed-into-production sequel is weaker, especially as it relies on an inexperienced actor to carry it – in her first leading role, 18-year-old Tomoko Ogawa was a last-minute replacement for Yoshiko Sakuma (who reportedly objected to what she saw as an increasing sexual emphasis, although the finished product is probably tamer than the first). As if this were not challenging enough, Ochisa is not a terribly interesting character in the first place, although she does eventually reveal another dimension towards the end and Ogawa does a fair job under the circumstances. However, although her performance was well-received and Toei planned to star her in further similar pictures, disappointing box office led them to insist that she do nude scenes from then on, causing her to quit films and turn to singing, where she found considerable success. Incidentally, Yoshiko Sakuma was not the only one to be replaced – shooting began with Michiko Saga as the older sister, but she apparently got in a strop due to too much waiting around and left after three days, forcing Toei to replace her with Hiroko Sakuramachi.

Hiroko Sakuramachi

Casting shenanigans aside, this is still a decent movie, and one which also benefits from the splendidly villainous presence of Ko Nishimura, who instigates an impressively bloody sword fight with multiple opponents at the film’s climax. Composer Sei Ikeno’s score might have been better suited to a horror movie, but it’s not ineffective, while director Sadao Nakajima (who also made the previous film) is adept at extracting the maximum amount of drama from every scene. The original screenplay by Takeo Kunihiro and Takehiro Nakajima might seem too similar to the original at first, but goes off in some interesting directions before finally revealing its surprising theme of an individual rebelling against the oppressive feudal system. Unusually, in this case, the turning worm is no put-upon samurai, but a concubine who has finally had enough of having no say in her own destiny.

Ko Nishimura

DVD at Toei Video (no English subtitles)

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The Last Judgment / 最後の審判 / Saigo no shinpan (1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #250

Tatsuya Nakadai

Masao Mishima

Jiro (Tatsuya Nakadai), the manager of a pool hall owned by Asai (Masao Mishima), has been having an affair with Masako (Chikage Awashima) since her wealthy engineer husband went to oversee a construction project in Vietnam two years earlier. The husband in question, Riichiro (Fujio Suga), also happens to be Jiro’s cousin. When he returns from abroad, it becomes very difficult for the lovers to continue meeting, especially as Riichiro is not only a jealous and suspicious type, but has a short fuse to boot.

Fujio Suga

Jitsuko Yoshimura

Meanwhile, Asai wants to sell the pool hall and Jiro wants to buy it but lacks the funds. He also has little time to find them as the local yakuza want to buy the place, but then he thinks of a clever solution to his problems. This will involve both seducing a waitress, Miyoko (Onibaba’s Jitsuko Yoshimura), and getting Riichiro to use his explosive temper against himself. But will Jiro be able to stay one step ahead of dogged police detective Kikuchi? (This latter is played by Junzaburo Ban, who played a similar character in the same year’s A Fugitive from the Past.)

Junzaburo Ban

This Toho production was based on the 1949 novel Heaven Ran Last by William P. McGivern (1918-82), who also wrote the novels on which Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat (1953) and Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) were based. Heaven Ran Last, though, was never filmed by Hollywood and, like Kurosawa basing High and Low (1963) on Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom, it’s an indication of how much American pulp was being translated into Japanese in the post-war years that it came to the attention of director Hiromichi Horikawa. In this case, apart from transferring the story from America to Japan, screenwriters Zenzo Matsuyama and Ichiro Ikeda have stuck pretty closely to the book – too closely, perhaps, according to some Japanese reviewers who have commented that the characters don’t behave like Japanese people. In any case, I found it to be one of the better plots I’ve seen in this type of film as the twists don’t become too far-fetched, as is so often the case.

Chikage Awashima

Several of the same talents from Horikawa’s excellent 1963 noir Shiro to kuro (‘White and Black’, aka Pressure of Guilt) returned for this one, including Japan’s top film composer Toru Takemitsu as well as cast members Chikage Awashima, Masao Mishima, Eijiro Tono and, of course, star Tatsuya Nakadai. The Last Judgment makes an excellent vehicle for Nakadai, who looks very cool driving around in an MG Roadster in his shades and fur-lined jacket and is obviously having a field day being very bad indeed. However, Jiro is saved from becoming a one-dimensional villain not only by Nakadai’s charismatic performance but the fact that his love for Masako, at least, does seem to be genuine.

One of the great things about Takemitsu as a composer was that he knew when to shut up, an all-too-rare talent which is well in evidence here, while Horikawa makes excellent use of industrial noises to heighten the tension in a number of scenes. Another plus is the dark, shadowy cinematography of Tokuzo Kuroda. All in all, The Last Judgment is a very satisfying noir that has been kept in the dark for far too long.

Thanks to A.K.

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Five Sisters / 女の暦 / Onna no koyomi (‘A Woman’s Calendar/Almanac’, 1954)

Obscure Japanese Film #177

Kyoko Kagawa

 

Yoko Sugi

 

Their parents now deceased, two adult sisters now live together in their old family home on an island, Shodoshima, in the south of Japan. The youngest of five sisters, they are Kuniko (Yoko Sugi), a schoolteacher who is reluctant to get married, and Mie (Kyoko Kagawa), who is around nine years younger and has a very different attitude – unbeknownst to Kuniko, she’s in love with a burly pig farmer (Gen Funabashi) and wants to marry him. 

 

Gen Funabashi, Kyoko Kagawa and friend

 

As the anniversary of their father’s passing is approaching, Kuniko and Mie decide that it’s time to have a family get-together, so they invite their three elder sisters to visit. The most senior, Michi (Kinuyo Tanaka), lives in Hiroshima and has five children of her own and a lazy, pachinko-addicted husband (Hisao Toake), while Takako (Yukiko Todoroki), who lives in Tokyo, is married to a man who’s in prison for getting caught up in a demonstration. Finally, there’s Kayano (Ranko Hanai), who lives in Osaka and is unhappily married to Sugie (Masao Mishima), who’s always unfavourably comparing her to his first wife. Will the examples of the three visiting sisters deter Mie from marriage as they have in Kuniko’s case? Or has she been scared into thinking she must get married in order not to end up like Ofuku (Eiko Miyoshi), a crazy old maid who lives on the island? 

 

Kinuyo Tanaka

 

Yukio Todoroki

Ranko Hanai

This Shintoho production was based on a story by Sakae Tsuboi, entitled simply Koyomi (‘calendar’ or ‘almanac’) and first published in 1940. Tsuboi (1899-1967) was the youngest of five daughters from Shodoshima, so she may well have based the character of Mie on herself. She also wrote Twenty-Four Eyes, which is also set on Shodoshima. Her only full-length work to have been translated into English, it was, of course, turned into a highly successful film by Keisuke Kinoshita in 1954. 

 

 

Like Policeman’s Diary (1955), the only other film I’ve seen by director Seiji Hisamatsu, this one is also reminiscent of Kinoshita’s work. Looking back at my review of that film, I described it as ‘a charming, bittersweet comic drama from a more innocent age’, a description which could equally apply to Five Sisters. However, unlike Kinoshita – who had a fondness for slightly gimmicky visual techniques – Hisamatsu’s direction is the kind that never draws attention to itself. Nothing terribly dramatic happens in this film, yet somehow I was never bored, and few films have dealt with the theme of marriage in such a light but thoughtful way.  It was screened in competition at Cannes in 1955, but seems to have rarely been seen since, at least outside of Japan. 

 

 

 DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

 Thanks to A.K.

The Time of Reckoning / 不信のとき / Fushin no toki (1968)

Obscure Japanese Film #128

Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao

Asai (Jiro Tamiya) is an artist who designs advertising posters for a printing company owned by Koyonagi (Masao Mishima). As a loyal subordinate, Asai sometimes accompanies his boss on his frequent excursions to the red light district. On one such occasion, Koyonagi becomes smitten with a naïve young newcomer, Mayumi (Mariko Kaga), and decides not only to make her his mistress but to persuade her to have his baby. Unfortunately, Mayumi turns out to be not only stupid and vulgar but stubborn and wilful to boot. Meanwhile, Asai becomes involved with bar hostess Machiko (Ayako Wakao), who knows that he is married but wants to have his baby and promises not to be a homewrecker. Asai’s wife is Michiko (Mariko Okada), a calligraphy teacher who appears unable to have children herself. Asai begins to find it increasingly complicated to continue satisfying the diverging demands of his job, his wife and his mistress…

Mariko Okada

The director of this film, Tadashi Imai, was one of Japan’s most critically-acclaimed film directors. However, after making Revenge in 1964, his opportunities to helm feature films dried up for a while as the industry as a whole was suffering an economic downturn, mainly due to so many people having recently bought TV sets, initially to watch the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. As a result, Imai spent a couple of years making television dramas before returning to film work by directing the Ayako Wakao vehicle When the Sugar Candy Breaks (Satogashi ga kowareru toki, 1967) for Daiei. Wakao herself had recently had a success with The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka (1967), based – like The Time of Reckoning – on a novel by Sawako Ariyoshi, while her co-star in this picture, Mariko Okada, had previously scored a hit with another film based on an Ariyoshi novel, The Scent of Incense (1964) and also been successfully teamed (or pitted against) Wakao in Two Wives (1967). The Time of Reckoning, then, exists not as a project initiated by Imai, but as a vehicle for Daiei’s stars, Wakao and Okada, as well as Jiro Tamiya and Mariko Kaga. Personally, I detected little trace of the earlier Imai in this film, which he seems to have approached purely as a job of work – it looks in every respect like a typical Daiei drama which could have been made by any one of their stable of directors.

This is the film which got Jiro Tamiya not only fired by Daiei, but blacklisted by the film industry when he had the temerity to complain about his billing below the three female stars despite the fact that he was clearly playing the lead role. This over-the-top reaction by the studio seems almost feudalistic, and I doubt they did themselves any favours as they lost not only a talented actor, but a popular film star. Tamiya’s character in this film is actually less of a scheming shit than those he often played – indeed, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for him here despite the fact that he’s no saint. 

 

Mariko Okada

For her part, Mariko Okada is excellent as usual, but makes slightly less of an impact than the other two female stars simply because her role gives her fewer opportunities.

 

Masao Mishima and Mariko Kaga

The other Mariko, Mariko Kaga, is pretty funny playing a brainless bimbo who nevertheless has a mind of her own (an oxymoron with the emphasis on ‘moron’?), but it’s Wakao who really shines here. Although her character is for the most part quite placid, there are a couple of scenes in which she becomes emotional where you can see that Wakao is not merely ‘acting’, she’s really feeling it, as you can tell by the fact that you can even see her face visibly colouring at one point. 

 

Perhaps that’s the main reason why she won the 1969 Kinema Jumpo Award for Best Actress for this film, House of Wooden Blocks and One Day at Summer’s End. I should also mention that there’s a nice cameo from the Woman in the Dunes herself, Kyoko Kishida.

Kyoko Kishida

With an easy listening jazz muzak score and an absence of any major tragedies, the tone of the film leans more towards comedy than drama, although it’s seldom laugh-out-loud funny.  Instead, it opts for a similar gentle irony to that of the recently-reviewed Furin, another film in which the women get the better of a man who thinks he’s got his two-timing arranged perfectly. Things get pretty complicated and confusing towards the end and then the film finishes with an odd little non-ending (that I actually rather liked). It’s quite an enjoyable journey, but this is one film that will be best appreciated by fans of the stars rather than the director.

Mariko Kaga

 

Bonus trivia: There have been four TV versions, including a 1968 one with Keiju Kobayashi in the Tamiya role and a 1984 one with Mariko Kaga switching roles to play Michiko. There was also a 1969 stage version starring Keiju Kobayashi in which Mariko Okada switched roles to play Machiko.

Note on the title: The Japanese title translates more accurately as ‘Time of Distrust.’

Thanks to A.K.