Beyond Love and Hate / 愛と憎しみの彼方へ / Ai to nikushimi no kanata e (1951)

Obscure Japanese Film #237

Toshiro Mifune

Abashiri Prison, Hokkaido. When six convicts escape one rainy night, kindly veteran screw Kubo (Takashi Shimura) is shocked to learn that one of the men was Goro Sakata, also known as Fudo (Toshiro Mifune), a model prisoner who had only six months left to serve. It transpires that, in order to get Fudo to join the escape, the ringleader (Eitaro Ozawa) had spread a lie that his wife, Masae (Mitsuko Mito), was having an affair.

Takashi Shimura

Ryo Ikebe

However, it turns out that she has indeed become very close to a young doctor, Kitahara (Ryo Ikebe), although their relationship has remained platonic thus far – but will Fudo believe this? Possibly not, considering that – after hearing of her husband’s escape – Masae has made herself look guilty as hell by fleeing to the mountains with Kitahara (her reasons for this are never fully explained, perhaps because they make no sense)…

Mitsuko Mito

Distributed by Toho, this production by the Eiga Geijutsu Kyokai (Film Art Association)* was based on a story by Kotaro Samukawa (1908-77) entitled Datsugoku-shu (‘Escaped Prisoner’); this title was no doubt not used here as the same company had only recently released an unrelated picture also starring Toshiro Mifune entitled Datsugoku (1950).

Although director Senkichi Taniguchi brought Akira Kurosawa back on board to help him with the screenplay for this one, the script proves to be little improvement on that of Taniguchi’s previous film, Devil’s Gold. One scene which seems likely to have been a Kurosawa contribution recalls his 1950 picture Scandal, painting journalists in an extremely unfavourable light as dishonourable people who basically print lies for money. Unfortunately, the film feels too long for its slender story, which seems to have been cooked up mostly as an excuse to get Taniguchi and his star Toshiro Mifune back up in the mountains again.

Eitaro Ozawa and Mifune

On a more positive note, the locations are pretty impressive here, with one scene taking place on the side of a steaming volcano, which must have been a dangerous place to shoot in. There’s also another strong score which could only be the work of Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube, while the strong cast do their best with the substandard material foisted upon them. In particular, it’s good to see Takashi Shimura in a more substantial role than usual even if he has to play a prison guard so soft he’s practically a marshmallow.

* According to Kurosawa in his book Something Like an Autobiography, he established the Film Art Association in 1948 together with Taniguchi, their mentor Kajiro Yamamoto, Mikio Naruse and producer Sojiro Motoki. 

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Dedication of the Great Buddha / 大佛開眼 / Daibutsu kaigen (1952)

 Obscure Japanese Film #186

Kazuo Hasegawa and Machiko Kyo

 

Nara, the then-capital of Japan, in the year 745. Kunihito (Kazuo Hasegawa) is a sculptor of rare talent. One day, after completing a huge sand sculpture by a river, he is upset when the oblivious Mayame (Machiko Kyo) walks over it to fetch water. An argument ensues in which they throw water at each other before going their separate ways. Sometime later, Mayame’s dancing attracts the attention of the lecherous Ogusu (Kenjiro Uemura), who follows her into the forest and tries to rape her, but she’s saved in the nick of time by Kunihito, who happened to be passing by. As a result, she immediately falls in love with Kunihito and becomes his girlfriend.

 

Eitaro Ozawa

Kunihito is recruited by the hunchbacked Kimimaro (Eitaro Ozawa, in a rare sympathetic role), who has been tasked with constructing a huge statue of the Great Buddha at Kinsho-ji (now Todai-ji) Temple and needs an assistant. Later, when Lady Sakuyako (Mitsuko Mito) sees some of Kunihiko’s work, she insists that he make a statue of her. Mayame, jealous of all the attention Kunihito is paying to both projects, decides to get revenge by sabotaging the Buddha statue…

 

Mitsuko Mito

 

This Daiei production was based on a play by Hideo Nagata (1885-1949) first published in 1921. Mizoguchi’s The Love of Sumako the Actress (1947) had also been based on a Nagata play and, in fact, even featured Tomo’o Nagai in a small role as Nagata himself. I don’t know how it compares to the original, but Ryuichiro Yagi’s screenplay seems, frankly, rather ludicrous, so it’s no surprise that Yagi failed to have a very successful career as a screenwriter despite being a respected playwright himself. 

 

Machiko Kyo

 

Presumably, having happened in the distant past, the actual personalities surrounding the construction of the Great Buddha are a bit of a mystery, but I’m willing to bet they didn’t include a vain and silly woman who spends most of her time dancing around a forest and mooning after a sculptor. Machiko Kyo does her best, but this may well be the worst role of her career. A lot of scenes feel too drawn-out, especially those featuring Kyo blubbering, of which there are many. Such sentimental nonsense must have seemed out of date even in 1952 and is not helped any by Ikuma Dan’s clichéd score. Intended as a prestige production and optimistically submitted to Japan’s Festival of the Arts as well as Cannes, it deservedly won nothing, but luckily director Teinosuke Kinugasa, together with stars Kazuo Hasegawa and Machiko Kyo redeemed themselves with the following year’s far superior Gate of Hell.

 

 

Golden Demon / 金色夜叉 / Konjiki yasha (1954)

Obscure Japanese Film #175

 

Jun Negami and Fujiko Yamamoto

 

1890. Miya (Fujiko Yamamoto) is a young woman in love with her adopted brother, Kan’ichi (Jun Negami). The feeling is mutual and they plan to marry. However, Miya’s parents want her to marry the wealthy Tomiyama (Eiji Funakoshi) and persuade her that it’s in Kan’ichi’s best interests too as then they’ll be able to afford to send him abroad to study, which will greatly improve his prospects.

 

Eiji Funakoshi

 

Four years later, Miya is trapped in a miserable marriage to Tomiyama who, knowing that he’s not loved, takes every opportunity to bully and humiliate his wife, while Kan’ichi has taken employment as a debt collector for a much-hated female moneylender, Akagashi (Mitsuko Mito), known as ‘Foxy Shark’. She has only given him a job because she wants to seduce him, and he finds himself in the position of having to demand repayment of loans from his former friends…

 

Jun Negami and Mitsuko Mito

 

Based on an unfinished novel by Koyo Ozaki (1868-1903), the plot of this Daiei production must have seemed old hat even in 1954. In fact, there had been numerous silent versions* of the novel as well as previous talkies by Hiroshi Shimizu in 1937 and Masahiro Makino in 1948. The title seems intended to reference the supposed obsession with money which Kan'ichi develops in an attempt to fill his void, but it’s just one aspect of the story that – in this film, anyway – never really convinces and feels like a mere contrivance. Another is his determination to remain so unforgiving towards Miya. What really takes the biscuit though is the fact that these two estranged lovers end up living across the street from each other!

 

Mitsuko Mito

 

Otherwise, the film is quite well-made by director Koji Shima and the performances are good, with Mitsuko Mito clearly having the most fun as the lustful loan shark. It won the 1954 Asia Pacific Film Festival award for Best Film and received some distribution abroad, arguably at the expense of other, better films, but this is probably due to the fact that it was one of the earliest Japanese feature films to be made in colour. A lot of trouble was clearly taken to shoot scenes in picturesque settings, such as a field of cherry blossom trees, a moonlit beach and a lonely road at sunset. Unfortunately, the copy I saw looked like a poor VHS transfer and the colours were horrible, but I did have the feeling that it would probably look great in a good quality copy. 

 

 

*A 1918 version cast future film director Teinosuke Kinugasa (a male) as Miya, while Kinuyo Tanaka played the role in a 1932 film.

Joshu karasu / 上州鴉 ('Crow of Joshu', 1951)

Obscure Japanese Film #95

Denjiro Okochi

 

This Daiei production stars silent screen veteran Denjiro Okochi as Takizo, a wandering samurai and master swordsman who returns incognito to the town where he was born, hoping to shake off some men pursuing him. Once there, he meets Sahei (Koichi Katsuragi), a widowed farmer, to whom he will later confess that his mother (now deceased) was a maid who became pregnant by a criminal and had to give birth to him in a warehouse. 

Michiko Hoshi

 

Sahei has two daughters, Okimi (Michiko Hoshi) and Omitsu (Kazuko Takamori). Unable to pay the annual tax, Sahei asks government official Yamagataya (Ryanosuke Higashi) to take Omitsu in as an indentured servant instead. Yamagataya agrees, but secretly intends to pimp her out.

 

Kotaro Bando

 

Mitsusaburo Ramon

Meanwhile, Inoyuki (Kotaro Bando) visits a gambling den owned by Hikigoro (Mitsusaburo Ramon from The Mysterious Edogawa Ranzan) in an attempt to raise money so that his sick wife Okichi (Mitsuko Mito) can take a rest, but he loses and is tricked into signing Okichi over to Hikigoro. Observing the way the innocent townspeople are abused and cheated by the powerful and corrupt, Takizo decides that it’s time to for him to come out of hiding and intervene…

Mitsuko Mito

 

Based on an original work by Shintaro Mimura, the screenplay was written by Kaneto Shindo, who must not only have been the most prolific screenwriter of all time, but who also maintained an impressively high standard throughout his 70-year career. Director Taizo Fuyushima (1901-81) was new to me, but on this evidence he seems worthy of further investigation as Joshu karasu features excellent mobile camerawork courtesy of Yasukazu Takemura, some very well-co-ordinated and complex staging, a lively sense of rhythm in the editing and a strong ensemble cast, including that reliable old scene-stealer Daisuke Kato as a travelling con artist. 

Daisuke Kato

 

Atsushi Watanabe and Toshiaki Konoe

Atsushi Watanabe and Toshiaki Konoe are also great fun as a couple of oddball palanquin carriers, one of whom has a topknot with a life of its own. The fight scenes are well above-average for 1951, too – one even takes place in heavy rain, which would soon become a Kurosawa trademark (not the only time this film brought Kurosawa to mind). 

Denjiro Okochi

 

It’s a marvel how the Japanese cinema of this period appears to have been populated with an almost endless number of excellent directors of whom we’ve never heard. Taizo Fuyushima’s career stretched back to 1926 and he directed over 90 films, mainly period dramas, but he seems to be almost completely forgotten. After his retirement, he made kabuki paper dolls, at which he was considered a master, and took on a number of pupils.

Denjiro Okochi and Koichi Katsuragi

 

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