Violence / 暴力 / Boryoku (1952)

Obscure Japanese Film #285

Sumiko Hidaka

Post-war Osaka. After a prostitute commits suicide by throwing herself in front of a train, a magazine editor gives a female writer (former silent star Shizue Natsukawa) a guided tour of Shinsekai, a sleazy neighbourhood where food is cheap and criminals gather. Following this documentary-style opening, the narrative gradually focuses in on Takako (Sumiko Hidaka), a young woman who lures men to an ‘inn’ run by her stepfather, Yamada (Ichiro Sugai), where they are summarily fleeced and beaten up if they complain.

Ichiro Sugai and Chieko Naniwa

Taiji Tonoyama

Also living there are Takako’s mother (Chieko Naniwa) and blind 18-year-old sister Shizuko (Setsuko Wakayama), while their real father (Taiji Tonoyama) – having finally made it back to Japan after being a PoW only to find himself usurped by Yamada – is now a vagrant who hangs around the neighbourhood. Takako continually has to fend off the attentions of strip club owner Tomisaka (Eitaro Shindo, who also played the title role in Sansho the Bailiff) and hates her life in this cesspit, so when car thief Takami (Isao Kimura) seems to offer a way out, she’s only too ready to pin her hopes on him...

Isao Kimura

This Toei production was based on an original screenplay by Kaneto Shindo and directed by his regular associate Kozaburo Yoshimura. Prior to watching, I was under the impression that it starred Machiko Kyo because the woman on the poster / DVD cover looks like her (could this have been deliberate?), but it’s actually the lesser-known Sumiko Hidaka, who was not a star. (Perhaps Shindo and Yoshimura had Kyo in mind but couldn’t get her as she was under contract to Daiei.) Anyway, Hidaka gives a strong performance in a role that requires her at various times to be cynical and hard-bitten, tender and compassionate, falling-down drunk, and beside herself with anger, all of which she does well. This may well have been her finest hour in the movies and on this evidence she deserved more success.

Sumiko Hidaka

While there may be some influence from the Italian neorealist films of the time in the film’s depiction of post-war poverty, here the main actors are all professionals and there’s a little too much melodrama in the plot for it to be considered very realistic as realism goes. On the other hand, although most – if not all – of the exteriors were shot on location (I assume the interiors were done at Toei's Kyoto studios), the location work certainly delivers a vivid portrait of the area at the time. Made shortly after the American occupation ended, this was probably pretty strong stuff for 1952. One weird touch worth mentioning is a couple of shots in negative which are supposed to show us how the blind Shizuko views the world, but I’m not sure they really added anything other than a certain jarring effect.

Setsuko Wakayama

Eitaro Shindo

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

English subtitles by Coralsundy

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Escape at Dawn / 暁の脱走 / Akatsuki no dasso (1950)

 

Yoshiko Yamaguchi

 

1945. Harumi (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) is a singer in a troupe of female entertainers sent to Manchuria to help the Japanese soldiers forget about their probable imminent deaths. Unfortunately, she quickly attracts the attention of overbearing Lieutenant Narita (Eitaro Ozawa) and is about to be raped by him when Private First Class Mikami (Ryo Ikebe) knocks on the door to deliver a trivial telegram to Narita, allowing Harumi to escape. Harumi and Mikami fall in love, but, when he's wounded in battle, circumstances lead to them being captured together by the Chinese. Mikami is treated with nothing but kindness by his captors, but he’s been completely brainwashed by the Japanese military propaganda machine into thinking that it’s better to die than be taken prisoner…

 

Eitaro Ozawa and Yamaguchi

Produced by Shintoho, the company founded by those who split from Toho after the studio’s big labour dispute of 1947, Escape at Dawn was nevertheless distributed by Toho. Like director Senkichi Taniguchi’s previous film, Jakoman and Tetsu, it was also produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. In this case, the source was a 1947 novel by Taijiro Tamiya (1911-83) entitled Shunpu den (‘The Story of a Prostitute’, not available in English). Tamiya had served in Manchuria during the war (as had Taniguchi) and also written Nikutai no mon (‘The Gate of Flesh’), first filmed in 1948 by Masahiro Makino and later by Seijin Suzuki, Hideo Gosha and others. 

 

Ryo Ikebe

 

Although Tamiya is said to have created the character of Harumi with Yoshiko (later Shirley) Yamaguchi in mind, in the novel she was a Korean prostitute (or ‘comfort woman’), while it’s made very clear in the film that she is not a prostitute, and she has also become Japanese. Apparently, the original version of the screenplay was faithful to the novel on these points, but the content of Japanese films was still being controlled by the occupying Americans, who insisted that changes be made. It’s hard to see how such whitewashing benefitted the Americans, so their decision was presumably just a case of them imposing their own cultural nanny-state ideas of the time about the depiction of ‘immorality’ on screen. An unfortunate knock-on effect was that Harumi’s behaviour in the way she throws herself at Mikami and won’t take no for an answer now appeared extremely odd coming from a Japanese singer rather than a Korean prostitute. According to Stuart Galbraith IV in his book The Emperor and The Wolf, Kurosawa eventually got fed up with the requests for endless rewrites and left Taniguchi to it. He also states that,

…long preproduction, expensive exterior sets, and tangled red tape to secure permission for use of military hardware for filming (machine guns, etc) made it the most expensive Japanese feature to that point.

I’ve read elsewhere that it was also the first post-war Japanese film to feature scenes of Japanese soldiers on the frontlines. In any case, while it’s certainly a compromised vision, the film is at least very well-made and often technically impressive, with cinematographer Akira Mimura winning a Mainichi Film Concours award for his efforts. On the other hand, the essentially simple story of a predictably doomed romance feels overstretched at almost two hours. As Lieutenant Narita and his men are stationed in the desert, the film is very much like a Japanese Foreign Legion movie, and memories of Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper in Morocco (1930) are often brought to mind. There are some surprisingly sensual scenes between stars Yoshiko Yamaguchi and Ryo Ikebe – at one point, she bites his hand hard enough to draw blood, then sucks the wound, which he seems to enjoy. This would have been considered strong stuff in Japan in 1950 and probably helped at the box office.

Seijun Suzuki directed a more faithful version of the original novel in 1965.

Bonus trivia:

Setsuko Wakayama, who plays one of Harumi’s colleagues, had married director Senkichi Taniguchi in 1949, but they divorced in 1956 when he had an affair with actress Kaoru Yachigusa. This adultery scandal harmed Taniguchi’s career greatly – after directing an average of three films a year until 1957, he was subsequently out of work for over two years. When he did return to directing, the quality of the material he was offered was significantly lower than it had been before the scandal.

 

Setsuko Wakayama

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

Kimi shinitamo koto nakare / 君死に給うことなかれ (‘Don’t Die Before Your Time’, 1954)

Obscure Japanese Film #115

Yoko Tsukasa

1940. Baggy-suited university professor Wataru (Ryo Ikebe) falls for Kumiko (Yoko Tsukasa), the nurse looking after his ailing mother in the hospital. However, his best friend, Kojima (Yoshio Tsuchiya), is being sent off to war and wants Wataru to marry his sister, Reiko (Setsuko Wakayama). Wataru resists and, when Kumiko is reassigned to Hiroshima, he follows her but receives a telegram en route ordering him to report for military duty immediately. The two are separated and lose touch with each other amid the chaos of war. 

Ryo Ikebe

Five years later, Kumiko has survived the A-bomb and is working for a man (Takashi Shimura) who runs a nursery school for orphans in Hiroshima. However, she has radiation burns on her body and the doctors believe there is a strong chance of her developing leukemia. For this reason, she believes that she is no longer fit for marriage and has changed her name in case Wataru tries to find her. In fact, Wataru has already tried to do so and concluded that she must be dead; he has married Reiko, but remains heartbroken. When circumstances lead him to suspect that Kumiko may still be alive, he makes every effort to track her down…

Setsuko Wakayama

 

This wartime weepie was originally to star Ineko Arima, but she had to withdraw due to an eye problem and was replaced by Yoko Tsukasa, a Mainichi Broadcasting System employee who had never acted before but had just done her first modelling job and was spotted by director Seiji Maruyama on a magazine cover. Tsukasa proved that she was more than just a pretty face and became an instant star as a result. 

Takashi Shimura and Ryo Ikebe

On the basis of this film, it should be unsurprising that director Seiji Maruyama went on to become best-known for his later war films as, while some scenes are indifferently shot, the movie suddenly comes alive during the impressive action scene in which Wataru and Kumiko have to flee their train along with hundreds of other passengers due to an aerial attack.

Yoko Tsukasa

 

Given the storyline, this Toho picture can hardly fail to be moving, and indeed it is, but it also feels rather contrived at times, and the characters often fail to be as sympathetic as they’re presumably supposed to be. Wataru just seems to assume that his feelings are reciprocated by Kumiko and forces himself on her whether she likes it or not, while Kumiko appears to revel in playing the martyr. The film also tries to have its cake and eat it in that Kumiko’s only visible scar from the A-bomb (that we get to see anyway) is on one wrist, making it rather too easy for Wataru to dismiss it (compare this to the scene in A Night to Remember in which Jiro Tamiya is made to feel considerably more uncomfortable). One can’t help feeling that the bombing of Hiroshima in this film is little more than a convenient plot device. 

Wedding Day / 嫁ぐ日 / Totsugu hi (1956)

Obscure Japanese Film #94

Masami Taura and Keiko Tsushima

 

Sakie (Keiko Tsushima) is a young widow living with her father-in-law, Shinsaku Kijima (Tatsuo Saito), and his family. Kijima is a formerly successful playwright whose confidence has vanished in the post-war years; seen as a progressive in his heyday, his ideas are now regarded as hopelessly out-of-date. Unbeknownst to Kijima, Sakie pays a visit to Haiyuza (the real-life theatre company which trained Tatsuya Nakadai among many others) and asks director Mizuno (Seiji Miyaguchi) if he would help to get Kijima out of his funk by requesting a new play from him. Meanwhile, the rest of the family think it’s time that Sakie got married again and believe they’ve found the perfect candidate…

Tatsuo Saito

 

Although distributed by Shochiku, this is an independent production by Kindai Eiga Kyokai, the company formed by director Kozaburo Yoshimura, screenwriter Kaneto Shindo and actor Taiji Tonoyama in 1950, and which went on to produce films such as The Naked Island (1960) and Onibaba (1964). 

Keiko Tsushima

 

The modest story of Wedding Day may seem inconsequential, but it’s well done in all departments and a pleasure to watch. Perhaps the best thing about it is that it provided roles with depth for two underrated actors: Tatsuo Saito, who had starred in many of Ozu’s earlier works, and Keiko Tsushima, best-known for playing the beautiful daughter of one of the farmers in Seven Samurai. She also played the ‘stripper’ who doesn’t actually strip in Tomu Uchida’s Twilight Saloon. 

Sumiko Hidaka and Kurumi Yamabato

 

Setsuko Wakayama

Also notable among the cast are the actresses playing Kijima’s three daughters: Sumiko Hidaka (the hard-working one), Kurumi Yamabato (the lazy tomboyish one) and Setsuko Wakayama (the one who has a miscarriage but remains cheerful). Hayuza's Masami Taura is effective, too, as the son who has a crush on Sakie.

Director Kozaburo Yoshimura and his cast clearly went to great pains to make the characters convincing as fully-rounded human beings – note, for example, how the dialogue scenes usually involve someone carrying out a chore of some kind while speaking, or the troubled expression that sometimes passes across Sakie’s face – but only when she’s alone. 

Kaneko Iwasaki, Eitaro Ozawa, Seiji Miyaguchi and others

 

Recommended viewing for fans of Ozu and Naruse, Wedding Day should also be of interest to Japanese theatre buffs as Haiyuza founders Chieko Higashiyama and Eitaro Ozawa both make appearances (although Ozawa has no lines and is only glimpsed briefly), while Haiyuza member Kaneko Iwasaki is seen rehearsing the part of Anya in The Cherry Orchard – a role she had actually performed for the company five years earlier. 

Poster for Haiyuza's 1951 production of The Cherry Orchard