O-Den jigoku / お伝地獄 (‘O-Den Hell’, 1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #277

Eiji Funakoshi and Machiko Kyo

The early Meiji era (1870s). O-Den (Machiko Kyo) and Naminosuke (Eiji Funakoshi) are young villagers recently married. Naminosuke is suffering from a mysterious illness, but they lack the money to pay for proper medical care. Then Daihachi (Taiji Tonoyama), a man who had wanted to marry O-Den, turns up and gives her the necessary money, but then reveals there’s a catch – she has to sleep with him for it. The two argue on a bridge with rotten railings and Daihichi rather conveniently falls to his doom below.

Taiji Tonoyama

The couple hotfoot it to Tokyo, where Naminosuke is treated by a dashing young doctor, Sugimoto (Keizo Kawasaki), who dresses in the newly-fashionable Western style. He gives Naminosuke a medicine which proves very effective in stopping the pain, but he becomes reliant on it and it’s not long before O-Den is sleeping with the doctor in order to get repeat prescriptions – and so begins her fall into immorality...

Keizo Kawasaki

This Daiei production was based on a novel of the same name from 1935 by Kanji Kunieda (1892-1956), who had previously provided the source material for Tamizo Ishida’s Kenka tobi (1939) and Mizoguchi’s Utamaro and His Five Women (1946) among others, but appears to have remained untranslated in English. His novel was itself based on the story of O-Den (or Oden) Takahashi, who was convicted of murder and beheaded in 1879 at the age of 31. Kodansha’s Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia contains the following entry on Takahashi:

Murderess, the most notorious dokufu (wicked woman) of the modern era. Accused of several sex-related murders, Oden was the first woman to be executed by beheading after the Edo period (1600-1868). Born in what is now Gumma Prefecture, she was known from girlhood for her beauty and promiscuity. Her life of crime began after her husband contracted leprosy. When the disease proved incurable, Oden allegedly poisoned her husband and embarked on a career of prostitution, larceny and homicide. Arrested in 1876 for slitting the throat of a used-clothing merchant at an inn in Asakusa, she was convicted and ultimately executed. It was the most sensational crime story of the day, and lurid accounts of Oden’s escapades filled the newspapers. The popular author Kanagaki Robun wrote a spicy novel based on her life, Takahashi Oden yasha monogatari (1879, Tale of Takahashi Oden, the She-Devil), which Kawatake Mokuami adapted as a kabuki play.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of all of the information in the above entry, but it’s certainly clear that O-Den’s life began to be fictionalised in the very year of her death, and few of her chroniclers seem to have worried much about the actual facts since. Surprisingly, this film version features no throat-slitting, no arrest of O-Den and no execution. It’s also worth noting that, although it’s widely believed that she was the last woman to be executed by beheading in Japan, that’s simply not the case – there were at least a further 22 women put to death in this way in the two years following O-Den’s execution.

O-Den had already been the subject of at least half a dozen previous films, including silent pictures now lost, as well as Nobuo Nakagawa’s Dokufu Takahashi Oden (1958), usually known in English as A Wicked Woman, and a 1935 version of Kunieda’s novel directed by Tamizo Ishida. I doubt that Ishida’s film has survived, but the theme song sung by Kiyozo Shinbashi (who appeared in Sadao Yamanaka’s 1935 film The Million Ryo Pot) has, and you can listen to it on YouTube here. Incidentally, the role of O-Den in Ishida’s film was played by Sumiko Suzuki, who had also played her in a 1929 film. Suzuki (1904-85) is largely forgotten today, but may be known to some as the star of The Ghost Cat and the Shamisen (1938) and she apparently cornered the market in ‘ghost cat’ roles.

This film is so unlike Nakagawa’s version of O-Den’s story from only two years previously that it would be easy to miss the fact that they were inspired by the same real-life person. Director Keigo Kimura, who also wrote the screenplay, avoids the obvious exploitation elements of the story and focuses instead on charting the moral downfall of a woman who begins as a model wife trying her best to help her suffering husband. Having been the one to turn Machiko Kyo into a star in his 1949 film A Fool’s Love and worked with her frequently since, he was perhaps also concerned with providing her with a juicy role, which he certainly did. It’s a very sympathetic portrayal of O-Den which views her largely as a victim of circumstance – or fate – and her journey into cynicism is played perfectly by Kyo. In fact, performances are top-notch all round, with Eiji Funakoshi being especially believable in a difficult role as a man frequently almost out of his mind with pain.

Kimura pays considerable attention to period detail, and we see how the then-recent opening up of Japan has introduced various novel experiences to its people, from the eating of beef to having a photograph taken. In terms of style, he uses mainly long- and medium-shots throughout, with few close-ups and slightly longer takes than usual, allowing plenty of freedom to his actors, something which is especially apparent in Kyo and Funakoshi’s final, dramatic scene together. Kimura also seldom cuts to his main characters when transitioning between scenes, opting instead to focus briefly on random people going about their business: a crouching rickshaw driver tapping his pipe on the wheel of his vehicle, a young child fascinated by a sparkler, an old man enjoying a bottle of beer at a festival. As someone who’s always disliked the received wisdom that everything should be there to move the plot along, I heartily approve of these beautiful moments, and it’s these more than anything that, for me, make this an exceptionally fine film.

A note on the title:

The ‘O’ in O-Den’s name is an honorific prefix seldom used today, while the ‘Den’ (伝) can mean ‘legend’ in English, and the film is sometimes listed as ‘The Legendary Hell’, which makes little sense and, as far as I’m aware, was never an official release title. It does seem odd to use to use ‘O-Den Hell’ as a title without the character の, which would indicate that the English should be ‘O-Den’s Hell’ or ‘The Hell of O-Den’; my guess is that O-Den Hell is a sort of nickname, but I haven’t been able to confirm this.

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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Kenka tobi / 喧嘩鳶 (‘Fighting Firemen,’ 1939)

Obscure Japanese Film #222

 

Kazuo Hasegawa

 

This Toho Eiga production was based on a newspaper serial novel by Kanji Kunieda (1892-1956), who specialised in stories set in the Edo period and also wrote the source novel upon which Mizoguchi’s  Utamaro and His Five Women (1946) was based. The story of Kenka tobi concerns the genuine historical phenomenon of the samurai firefighting gangs of the Edo period, who were often in fierce competition with each other. 

 

Isuzu Yamada

 

The film features four of the big stars of Japanese cinema in the late 1930s: Kazuo Hasegawa, Isuzu Yamada, Ranko Hanai and Yataro Kurokawa. Directed by Tamizo Ishida, who also made Fallen Blossoms (1938) and the previously-reviewed Flower-Picking Diary (1939), it was a big budget production originally released in two parts and featuring impressively large sets (much of which goes up in flames) and hundreds of extras. 

 

Ranko Hanai

 

Kenka tobi zenpen (‘Fighting Firemen Part 1’) ran 73 minutes and, while I was unable to find a reliable running time for Part 2 (Kenka tobi kohen), I think it’s safe to assume it was a similar length. What we are left with is an 89-minute version cobbled together from the two original parts, so it’s likely that nearly an hour has been chopped out, and there are certainly elements of the story that are a little unclear. 

 

Yamada and Hasegawa

What remains has Kichigoro (Hasegawa), a firefighter from the Kaga-tobi gang, coming to the rescue of Omon (Hanai) when some villains try to abduct her in the street. Omon is the sister of the Ha-gumi gang’s Jirokichi (Kurokawa). She falls in love with Kichigoro, but this is complicated as he belongs to the rivals of her brother’s gang (shades of Romeo and Juliet) and also because Koina (Yamada), a geisha who knows him as a client, is already in love with him…

 

Hasegawa and Yataro Kurokawa

 

Although it’s a meller aimed squarely at the box office, there’s a good deal of subtlety in Ishida’s direction here, and it’s really very well staged and shot throughout, while performances are free from the hamminess you might expect from this type of material. With so few early Japanese talkies available in such good quality before it mostly became military propaganda, Kenka tobi is a rare treat. I doubt that we’ll ever get to see the original two parts in full and would not be surprised if they no longer exist – it was quite common in the Japanese cinema at the time for studios to make two-part films, then edit them down to a single feature and apparently bin the rest. Other examples that spring to mind are Kon Ichikawa’s 365 Nights (1948) and The Burmese Harp (1956), and The Spider Man (1958).

A remake appeared in 1961 under the title Edokko-hada, directed by Masahiro Makino. 

 

Thanks to A.K. 

Watch on my YouTube channel here (with English subtitles) 

Flower-Picking Diary / 花つみ日記 / Hana-tsumi nikki (1939)

Hideko Takamine

 

 

 Mitsuru (Misako Shimizu) is a girl from Tokyo whose family have just moved to the Soemoncho district of Osaka. She’s in her early-mid teens and her mother is a Christian. When she begins attending her new school, she soon becomes best-friends with classmate Eiko (Hideko Takamine), who used to live in Tokyo herself when she was small. Her family have a business training maiko (apprentice geisha) to sing, dance and play instruments. When the two girls come up with a plan to make a gift together with which to surprise their kindly teacher (Kuniko Ashihara) on her birthday, a misunderstanding ensues and they fall out. Both girls are miserable as a result, and Eiko gets to the point where she can’t even face school anymore, so she drops out to become a maiko herself…

 

Misako Shimizu

 

Produced by Toho Eiga before they became known simply as Toho from 1943, Flower-Picking Diary was based on a story by Nobuko Yoshiya (1896-1973). Being both a Christian and a lesbian, she wrote from an unusual perspective for a Japanese author of the time, but her books were highly popular with female students – so much so, in fact, that there had already been around 30 movies based on her work. The main source of this particular picture is a story entitled ‘Tengoku to maiko’ (‘Heaven and maiko’) from her 1936 collection Chisana hanabana (Little Flowers), but it seems that some elements may have been borrowed from other stories by Yoshiya as the story of the film (as adapted by female screenwriter Noriko Suzuki) differs considerably. The main difference is that there is apparently no falling out between the two girls in the original – a fact I found quite surprising considering that this is absolutely central to the film. Indeed, the extent to which it should be interpreted as the story of a lesbian love is debatable  – there’s certainly nothing overt – but it’s certainly a film about friendship and the devastating feelings that can occur when two close friends fall out. It’s difficult to think of other examples of films dealing seriously with broken friendships, but this one is very moving once it gets going (there may be rather too much singing of sentimental songs in the earlier stages). 

 

 

The shadow of war looms large over the film, and the scenes of largely unquestioning and joyful celebration when Mitsuru’s brother gets called up have not dated well, but are revealing of their time. (Incidentally, Nobuko Yoshiya’s reputation suffered somewhat after the war as she was said to have toed the authoritarian government line a little more than necessary.) Ironically, though, it’s the war that gives some hope for the future of Eiko and Mitsuru’s friendship as Eiko decides to make a senninbari for Mitsuru’s brother, which involves her standing at the bridge on Shinsaibashi Street and asking passing women to sew a stitch to make up the 1000 needed for this type of amulet belt.

 

 

Hideko Takamine was 15 when she made this, but already an old pro who had made dozens of films since her film debut in 1929 at the age of 5. Her co-star, Misako Shimazu, was a very young-looking 20 years of age, and was featured in a few other films but disappeared from the screen after 1941. Takamine may well have related to her role more than usual here as, shortly before making the film, like Eiko, she had been forced to leave school and pursue a career she did not particularly care for (acting in movies was something she felt obliged to do as no less than nine family members were relying on her financially).

The sensitive direction is by Tamizo Ishida (1901-72), who made around 90 films between 1926 and 1947, but the only other one which is relatively easy to find in decent quality with English subtitles is Fallen Blossoms (1938).

BONUS TRIVIA: If the actor playing Eiko’s father looks familiar, that’s probably because it’s Eitaro Shindo, who went on to play the title role in Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterpiece Sansho Dayu (1954)

Some of the information above comes from a review on Amazon Japan by ‘Beautiful Summer.’

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan