The Perennial Weed / 昭和枯れすすき / Showa kare susuki (1975)

Obscure Japanese Film #157

Kumiko Akiyoshi and Hideki Takahashi

Harada (Hideki Takahashi) is a young police detective assigned to the Nishi-Shinjuku precinct of Tokyo. He lives with his younger sister, Noriko (Kumiko Akiyoshi), and the two are very close as they’ve had nobody else to rely on since their mother left and their father died years before. Originally from the country, they’ve been living in Tokyo for some years due to Harada’s career. 

Hideki Takahashi

 

One day, Noriko fails to come home and Harada is shocked to see her walking in the street the following morning with a young yakuza thug, Yoshiura (Atom Shimojo). Harada begins tailing his sister and discovers that she has quit the fashion school she’s supposed to be studying at and is leading a double life. As if that were not troubling enough, a murder then occurs in which she may be implicated… 

 

The splendidly-named Atom Shimojo

 

This Shochiku production was adapted by the omnipresent Kaneto Shindo from an untranslated story entitled ‘Yakuza na imoto’ (‘Yakuza Sister’) by Shoji Yuki, a prolific and popular writer best known for his hard-boiled crime fiction, but who worked in a variety of genres. Other adaptations of his work include the previously-reviewed Doro inu (1964) and Kinji Fukasaku’s Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (1972), though the only one of his books which seems to have made it into English is a children’s picture book entitled I’m Not a Dog. 

 

Atom Shimojo and Kumiko Akiyoshi

 

The Japanese title of this film means something like ‘withered Showa-era silvergrass’, which bears no direct relation to anything in it. The title comes from a 1974 hit single by a duo known as Sakura and Ichiro which was also used as a theme song for the movie (and which the curious can listen to on YouTube here). The male and female singers compare themselves to withered silvergrass, observe how ‘even when trampled on, we endured’, and express their wish to ‘die beautifully’. Presumably, the inner feelings of Harada and his sister are supposed to be reflected in the song, but it was no doubt mainly a ploy to help sell the picture. In any case, the English title of The Perennial Weed has even less to do with the content of the film. 

 

Hideki Takahashi and Mizuho Suzuki

 

Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura, a filmmaker best-known for his Seicho Matsumoto adaptations such as Castle of Sand (1974), this features his usual semi-documentary approach to shooting on real locations wherever possible, something which is used to good effect here. The sparing use of music in this film is also an asset – most of what we hear on the soundtrack is actually the ambient sounds of the city, especially those of passing trains and traffic, which adds appropriately to the sense of realism. 

 

Hideki Takahashi and Kumiko Akiyoshi are well-cast in the leading roles and give a good account of themselves. There’s an occasional suggestion that Harada’s feelings for his sister may be more than just brotherly, but Nomura ultimately leaves it an open question and seems much more concerned with the effect that city life has on his principal characters – especially Harada, who is suffering to a similar malaise to that of Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground (1951). Harada and Noriko are two refugees from rural Japan who have come to Tokyo for a better life but found a soul-crushing world of sleazy neon-lit bars and rundown, cramped apartment buildings among which criminals flourish and become arrogant while the police are dispirited and can only carry on by getting drunk every night after work. Harada has to deal with the reality that his sister has not lived up to his ideals and become the paragon of virtue he had hoped for, and many of the other characters – most of whom have also fled the countryside to live in Tokyo – express a similar sense of disillusionment. This is shown in its most extreme form at a murder scene Harada visits, where a loving father has killed his daughter rather than allow her to marry a man he knows is bad news. This has nothing to do with the plot, but the implication is that Harada could end up in a similar situation in regard to Noriko. 

 

While this may be one of the director’s lesser-known works, it’s very well-achieved, keeps you watching and does offer some food for thought beyond a mere murder mystery. I’ve also rarely seen a specific side of a city’s atmosphere captured as well as it is here by Nomura’s regular cinematographer Takashi Kawamata. However, The Perennial Weed was perhaps too downbeat for most audiences and was reportedly a commercial failure.  

 
Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

Doro inu / どろ犬 (aka 'The Desperate', 1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #85

Minoru Oki

This Toei production stars Minoru Oki (perhaps best known as the main cop in the 1958 classic Stakeout) in another rare leading role as Cho, a respected senior detective with 20 years’ service under his belt. He sees himself as a good guy and hates criminals with a passion, but he also secretly keeps a mistress, Chiyo (Chisako Hara), who is the wife of a yakuza currently spending time behind bars. Unfortunately for him, a slimy blackmailer, Yamaguchi (Ko Nishimura, who else?), finds out about this relationship and uses the information to compromise Cho. Things are further complicated by an unlikely friendship that develops between Chiyo and Yamaguchi’s brother (Kunie Tanaka), who has learning difficulties, and by Cho’s colleague, Detective Tokumochi (Hisashi Igawa), who has known Yamaguchi since they were children. As Cho struggles to keep both his reputation and self-respect intact, he finds himself increasingly on the wrong side of the law he has sworn to uphold…

Ko Nishimura

 

Based on a 1963 novel by Shoji Yuki entitled Yoru no owaru toki (‘When the Night Ends’), this obscure noir is a real find. The dark, shadowy cinematography of Masahiko Iimura suggests a world of perpetual night, Masaru Sato provides an excellent modernist score, and there’s a typically memorable performance by the great Ko Nishimura, probably the closest thing the Japanese cinema had to Peter Lorre. He must have been a dedicated actor, too, as in one scene he allows himself to be literally thrown around a room for several minutes – without the aid of a stunt double – by Minoru Oki, perhaps as punishment for stealing the movie. 

 

Kunie Tanaka and Chisako Hara

 

Debut director Takaharu Saeki (1927-2018), who had worked as an assistant to Tomotoka Tasaka, handles all aspects with admirable skill, so why, you may ask, did he not make another feature film for 20 years? It turns out that shortly after completing this picture, he led a demonstration outside the home of Toei president Hiroshi Okawa, who promptly had him exiled to their TV production arm. In 1984, he finally got a chance to make one more film; entitled A Train Ran on the Plateau, it has long since fallen into obscurity. 

 

Hisashi Igawa

 

The Japanese title translates uneasily to English. ‘Inu’ means ‘dog’, but ‘doro’ can mean ‘mud’ or ‘thief’, so it’s unclear which meaning is intended, which is perhaps why the subtitler of the print I saw has christened the film ‘The Desperate.’ Kudos to them, anyway, as they have done a fine job. 

 

Ko Nishimura