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.

If you enjoy this blog, feel free to Buy Me a Coffee.

I’ll Cry Alone / 帯をとく夏子 / Obi o toku Natsuko (‘Natsuko Unties Her Obi’, 1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #235

Ayako Wakao

Eiji Funakoshi

Natsuko (Ayako Wakao) is a former hot spring geisha who has become the exclusive mistress of company president Sakuma (Eiji Funakoshi in unconvincing old man make-up). He’s under pressure from his sister Kanako (Yumeji Tsukioka) to marry Taeko (Noriko Hodaka) as it will be good for the company and, although he wants to continue seeing Natsuko on the side, Natsuko is not happy with the idea.

Yumeji Tsukioka

Kyoko Enami

A chance of a different future seems to present itself when Sakuma begins a liaison with unlikely window cleaner Sumiko (Kyoko Enami) and Natsuko runs into (literally) the teacher she had a crush on at school, Kenji (Mikijiro Hira). However, he’s now reduced to working as a garage mechanic and unable to keep her in the luxury to which she has become accustomed…

Mikijiro Hira

This Daiei production was based on the ‘Natsuko’ series of stories by Seiichi Funahashi* serialised in the literary magazine Shincho between 1952 and 1961. The first batch was published as a novel entitled Geisha Konatsu in 1952, and Toho had produced two films about Natsuko using that title in 1954/55 with Mariko Okada starring. Funahashi was also the author of the source material for Story of a Blind Woman (also 1965) and the two versions of Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950 and 1968). Unfortunately, as I felt was the case for those stories, this is another that’s unlikely to resonate much with viewers these days.

Although the film has a clear message in favour of female independence, coming as it does after we have watched Natsuko fawning over two undeserving men for most of the film, it feels tacked on almost as an afterthought. Considering the deeply-ingrained sexism of the society that Natsuko is forced to inhabit, a more hard-hitting approach would have been preferable, but the tone is fairly light here, with some scenes simply played for laughs (of which, admittedly, there are a couple). This half-heartedness is probably because the real reason for the film’s existence was simply to provide another vehicle for Ayako Wakao; at the time, much was made of the fact that she wore only kimono in this picture – but, of course, a different kimono for each scene.

Directed by veteran Shigeo Tanaka with the same competent indifference he brought to the earlier Wakao costume-change flick Tokyo Onigiri Girl (1961).

*Sometimes listed as Seiichi Funabashi, but I think that’s incorrect.

DVD at Amazon Japan

Thanks to A.K. and to Coralsundy for the English subtitles

If you enjoy this blog, feel free to buy me a coffee! 

Osho /王将 (‘King of shogi’, 1962)

Obscure Japanese Film #106

 

Rentaro Mikuni

This Toei production stars Rentaro Mikuni as Miyoshi Sakata (1870-1946), an illiterate sandal-maker who went on to become the top player of shogi, a Japanese board game similar to chess. When we first meet him, he’s living by the railroad tracks in the Tennoji area of Osaka around 1900, and he’s so obsessed with shogi that he neglects his wife and children even when the family are struggling to get by. The only things that he can read are the characters on the shogi pieces. 

 

Chikage Awashima

He and his wife Koharu (Chikage Awashima) are followers of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism, but she is more devoted than he; in her despair, she frequently picks up an uchiwa taiko (fan drum) and chants namu-myoho-renge-kyo in an effort to improve their karma (the unhappy wife who seeks solace in this particular form of religion became something of a cliché in Japanese films and may well have originated in the 1947 play by Hideji Hojo upon which this film is based, although the real-life Sakata family were apparently not members of this sect). 

 

Mikijiro Hira

After Sakata loses a game to Kinjiro Sekine (Mikijiro Hira) on a technicality, things get so bad that Koharu comes close to committing suicide on the railway tracks with their children. When her husband realises what he’s nearly driven her to, he throws his shogi board and pieces onto the tracks and vows to give up the game forever. However, shortly after this occurs, a couple of shogi enthusiasts (Taiji Tonoyama and Norio Hanazawa) arrive, announcing they have decided to sponsor Sakata, and his career resumes. As the years pass, he finds himself pitched against his arch-rival Sekine on a number of further occasions, and gradually becomes the leading shogi player in the country, improving his family’s financial situation in the process – but at what cost?

Taiji Tonoyama and Yoshiko Mita

 

This was director Daisuke Ito’s third go at this story. His first had been in 1948 with Tsumasaburo Bando in the lead, and his second in 1955 with Ryutaro Tatsumi (who had originated the role on stage). The film opens with an impressive crane shot of a bustling market lasting nearly two minutes and featuring hundreds of extras (including Tetsuro Tanba as a candy floss seller at the very beginning!).

Tetsuro Tanba

 

Ito is adept at the staging and blocking of scenes, and we are treated to some great camerawork throughout, while Akira Ifukube’s music is also effective. The sets are extremely well-designed and detailed, even featuring a convincing replica of the original Tsutentaku (a tower with neon lights) which overlooked Sakata’s neighbourhood from 1912-43. However, Ito’s weakness, in my opinion, lies in his direction of actors, and he frequently allows or perhaps encourages them to go over the top, a flaw which is certainly evident here. 

Tsutentaku, Mikuni and Awashima

 

Rentaro Mikuni was a highly talented actor, but also an eccentric. In Osho, he gurns and whines his way through his performance, hacking up phlegm and affecting a grating, high-pitched voice. The fact that Sakata also gets physically violent with his grown-up daughter Tamae (Yoshiko Mita) when she tells him a few home truths means that he’s not only incredibly irritating, but entirely unsympathetic too, and in my view this is highly detrimental to the movie. Nevertheless, Mikuni seems to have had a hit in the role and appeared in a sequel (directed by Junya Sato) the following year (based on the play’s two sequels, I believe). It’s also worth noting that the real Sakata was said to have been a dandy rather than the scruffy slob portrayed here. 

Yoshiko Mita

 

The rest of the cast are generally fine, though even Chikage Awashima overdoes it at one point. As Sekine, Mikijiro Hira’s role feels underwritten and he’s left with little to do – presumably this part was beefed up a bit for Tatsuya Nakadai when he played the role in Hiromichi Horikawa’s 1973 remake opposite Shintaro Katsu (which, unlike this version, has Sakata suffering from an eye disease as he did in real life, possibly because Katsu had a knack for playing the visually-impaired). 

Sonny Chiba

 

A young Sonny Chiba appears towards the end as one of Sakata’s disciples; the other is played by Hideo Murata, who had scored a huge hit a year earlier singing a song also entitled ‘Osho’ and concerning the life of Sakata (perhaps it was that success which had led to this version).

If only Ito could have reigned Mikuni in a bit, this film might have been a true classic.

A Thousand Cranes / 千羽鶴 / Senba zuru (1969)

Obscure Japanese Film #7

 

Originally published in serial form between 1949 and 1951, then as a single volume the following year, Yasunari Kawabata’s novella A Thousand Cranes was first filmed in 1953 by director Kozaburo Yoshimura. According to IMDb, that version was co-written by Kaneto Shindo and Nagisa Oshima, but this seems highly unlikely as Oshima was still at university then, so it’s probable that Shindo was entirely responsible for the adaptation. The 1969 version also credits Shindo with the screenplay, so it could be that director Yasuzo Masumura was working from the same script as Yoshimura. 

The story deals with the complex relationships between the 28-year-old Kikuji and the two former mistresses of his deceased father. Chikako, a teacher of the tea ceremony, has an ugly black birthmark on her breast which Kikuji once saw as a child; it seems to simultaneously repel and fascinate him. She’s an insensitive, interfering busybody who takes it upon herself to arrange an unasked-for marriage match for Kikuji, although it’s by no means certain that she has the young man’s best interests at heart.  Chikako seems never to have recovered from the insult of being dumped by Kikuji’s father in favour of Mrs Ota, a widow, although she nevertheless remained part of his life on platonic terms after the event. Unwisely, Kikuji embarks on an affair with Mrs Ota, who is almost the polar opposite of Chikako: fragile, sentimental and over-emotional. 

Like Koji Takahashi in Two Wives, Mikijiro Hira (as Kikuji) has the difficult task of playing the stolid male lead between two much bigger female stars. Machiko Kyo gives the best performance as the scheming, impervious-to-insult Chikako, and one can see the schadenfreude written all over her face when tragedy strikes. Ayako Wakao has the lesser part as Mrs Ota, a rather one-note character usually seen either in tears or on the verge of fainting. One interesting difference from the book is that Mrs Ota is portrayed as being less sincere and more manipulative in the film – on two occasions, she appears to surreptitiously check that her tears are having the desired effect on Kikuji. Both women are well-cast, although the then 35-year-old Wakao is ten years younger than the character described in the book and looks it. A Thousand Cranes was the last of 20 films directed by Masumura in which she starred. Apparently, in a 1970 interview, he described her as ‘selfish and calculating’, going on to say that ‘she’s hardly a pure-hearted woman and she knows it,’ [1] so it certainly appears that the two fell out and one wonders whether Masumura’s view of her coloured the portrayal of Mrs Ota in the movie. 

 

I have to admit to having found the Kawabata novella entirely unengaging and Masumura’s film did little to improve matters for me. Although certainly very faithful to the literary original, this unfortunately translates as a series of scenes of people talking in rooms, which seldom makes for exciting cinema. No doubt this meant that only a small budget was required – something which may have been a consideration as the studio responsible (Daiei) was struggling at this point and would go bankrupt two years later. Wakao is good as ever, but A Thousand Cranes is unlikely to satisfy her fans as she has the lesser of the two main female roles and disappears less than an hour into the film.

---

[1] Quoted by ‘manfromplanetx’ in his review of The Graceful Brute (1962) on IMDb. Unfortunately, I don’t know the original source.