Fudotoku kyoiku koza / 不道徳教育講座 (‘Lectures on Immoral Education’, 1959)

Obscure Japanese Film #276

Shiro Osaka

Fujimura (Shiro Osaka) is an unrepentant criminal released from prison only to find two yakuza whose money he has stolen waiting for him outside. He flees and boards a train bound for Yamashiro, but they follow him onto the train. However, Fujimura finds that he has a doppelganger among the passengers and manages to swap clothes with him while he’s asleep in an effort to shake off his pursuers. It works, but when Fujimura reaches Yamashiro he realises that Bunpei Sagara (also played by Osaka), the man whose identity he has assumed, is a representative from the Ministry of Education whose mission is to deliver a lecture on the importance of morality and decide if the town is worthy of receiving a 10 million yen grant. The town’s VIPs queue up to kiss his butt and Fujimura continues to play the role of Sagara...

Yukio Mishima

If the basic plot of this Nikkatsu production sounds familiar, that’s because it’s an uncredited reworking of Gogol’s play The Government Inspector. However, the credited source is a series of essays by Yukio Mishima originally published in the weekly magazine Shukan Myojo, so it was presumably the screenplay authors (Atsundo Kubota* and director Katsumi Nishikawa) who came up with the idea of raiding Gogol for the storyline. The film retains the title of the essay series which, according to Japanese Wikipedia, ‘is modelled after Ihara Saikaku’s Twenty Unfilial Acts of Japan, which parodies the Chinese Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety and contains carefully selected stories of “unfilial children”.’ Mishima’s essays, which were later collected in book form, have yet to appear in English, but were, apparently, humorous attacks on the hypocrisies of the time. In any case, he clearly approved of the film as he even appears in it as himself in a brief prologue and epilogue.

Hiroyuki Nagato

The upright facade presented by the town of Yamashiro soon proves to be a complete sham, and the place is populated largely by amoral eccentrics: two young students plotting the perfect murder, a high school girl raffling off her virginity, a middle-aged Christian housewife (Chieko Misaki) fantasising about her young muscleman driver, an anti-moral education protest group, and a nerd who claims to be a lady-killer (Pigs and Battleships’ Hiroyuki Nagato). 

Yumeji Tsukioka

The biggest star in the film, Yumeji Tsukioka, is absent for most of the picture but plays a TV star returning to her hometown to think about her future, while leading actor Shiro Osaka was usually found further down the cast list but acquits himself well in the comic double role. Director Nishikawa seems quite at home with all the absurdist comedy and keeps things moving at a steady pace.

Shiro Osaka

*Sometimes incorrectly translated as Atsuto Kubota.

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Chieko Masaki

That Complicated Guy / 複雑な彼 / Fukuzatsu no kare (aka ‘A Complicated Man’,1966)

Obscure Japanese Film #238

Jiro Tamiya

This Daiei production stars Jiro Tamiya as Joji Miyagi, who works as a flight attendant for a Japanese airline. One day, en route to San Francisco, he attracts the attention of a passenger, Saeko (Mariko Taka), the daughter of a banker. Saeko asks around about him and discovers that he has an unusual history, having apparently flitted from one random job to another. Although he also has a reputation as a ladies’ man, she is not put off and manages to engineer another meeting. A passionate love affair begins, but is there a darker side to his strange past?

SPOILER BELOW

Mariko Taka

Based on one of those novels by Yukio Mishima which he knocked out for women’s magazines between more serious efforts, it was faithfully adapted for the screen by the not-especially-distinguished Kimiyuki Hasegawa. Mishima had actually based his protagonist very closely on a friend of his, Joji Abe (1937-2019), a yakuza who had worked for Japan Air Lines in the early 1960s before his background came to light and he was forced to leave. Abe later served time in prison before finally quitting the yakuza in 1981, subsequently becoming a writer himself and even acting in a few films. According to Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima by Naoki Inose and Hiroaki Sato,

Mishima had become acquainted with Abe around 1953 when Abe, a member of the yakuza group Ando Gumi [yakuza-turned -actor Noboru Ando’s gang], was working as a bouncer at a gay bar. It was largely because he was impressed by Abe’s handling of a drunken gaijin that Mishima took up boxing when he thought he was ready. He decided he was unfit for the sport and gave it up after about a year, but he kept in touch with Abe.

Mishima admired Abe for what he perceived as his manliness and his readiness to disregard the rules of convention and go his own way. Mishima also knew Jiro Tamiya, who read the book in proof form and pushed to play the part. (Tamiya’s little-known co-star Mariko Taka appeared in half a dozen films for Daiei between 1966-68 before moving to Toei, for whom she mainly did television before getting married in 1974, after which she promptly retired.) Although the film is a fairly lightweight entertainment whose appeal relies partly on the location shooting in San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro, it’s permeated by the author’s far-right ideology and its portrayal of foreigners feels xenophobic.

Mariko Taka

However, director Koji Shima and his DP Akira Uehara – who went on to shoot Man without a Map for Teshigahara and the recently-rediscovered The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (both 1968) – bring some real visual style to the material with subtle lighting and a strong sense of composition and colour. All in all, a more interesting film than I had expected and certainly an effective vehicle for its star, whose athleticism is also put to good use in a few action scenes. 

Tamiya with Eiko Taki

Bonus trivia: According to Japanese Wikipedia, ‘At the age of 16, Joji Abe went to the Netherlands as a cameraman’s assistant, where he once got into a fistfight with Robert Mitchum over a prostitute.’

DVD at Amazon Japan

Thanks to Coralsundy for the English subtitles

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The School of Flesh / 肉体の学校 / Nikutai no gakko (1965)

Kyoko Kishida

 

Taeko (Kyoko ‘Woman of the Dunes’ Kishida) is a wealthy, aristocratic and self-confident Tokyo fashion designer who visits a gay bar, where she is attracted to younger, proletarian bartender Senkichi (Tsutomu Yamazaki, the kidnapper from High and Low), whom she asks out on a date. The rumour that he’ll sleep with absolutely anyone for money fails to put her off, but she’s taken aback when he turns up wearing geta (wooden sandals), chews with his mouth open and takes her to a pachinko parlour, but she soon gets over it and the two embark on a relationship. However, when her friends ask her if Senkichi is kind to her, she realises that she can’t think of a single example of his showing such a quality and begins to feel somewhat insecure in their relationship. But it turns out that Senkichi is actually far more conventional than he pretends to be…

 

Tsutomu Yamazaki

 

This Toho production was based on a novel of the same name by Yukio Mishima first published in 1963 in serial form in a magazine called Mademoiselle. Although it has yet to be translated into English,* this appears to be a very faithful adaptation and Mishima is on record as being highly pleased with it. The author’s obsession with physical beauty and the psychology of infatuation are much in evidence, but the protagonists are both hard to like and I can’t say that I personally found the story very engaging. Most of the drama comes from the shifting balance of power in their relationship.

 

What really makes this film worth seeing, however, is the striking visual style that director Ryo Kinoshita (b.1931) and his cameraman Yuzuru Aizawa (who also shot The Bad Sleep Well) bring to it. Kinoshita was a former assistant to Yuzu Kawashima (and no relation to Keisuke Kinoshita as far as I’m aware). The rest of his brief filmography looks pretty routine, but he was one of those directors whose career began a little too late, leaving him few opportunities to show what he could do for the cinema before he was forced to move into television instead. In fact, part of the reason for the move in his case may have been that the bigwigs at Toho were, apparently, displeased with the arty visuals in The School of Flesh. However, in my opinion, the use of deep focus, unusual camera angles and bold lighting effects makes this film a visual treat throughout. 

 

 

The age discrepancy between the two characters is less pronounced than in the book, which describes Taeko as being 39 and Senkichi 21 – at the time of the film’s release, Kishida was 34 and Yamazaki 28. The two stars had both been members of the Bungakuza theatre company and knew each other well. Another person associated with Bungakuza was Yukio Mishima himself – the company had staged a number of his plays, often featuring Kishida, an actress who was both admired and befriended by the writer.

*The novel has appeared in French and also provided the basis for the French film L’ecole de la chair (1998) starring Isabelle Huppert.

Thanks to A.K. 

 

 

Kaei / 花影 / (‘The Shade of Blossoms’, 1961)

Obscure Japanese Film #194

Junko Ikeuchi

 

Yoko (Junko Ikeuchi) is an ageing Ginza bar hostess who has never been sufficiently calculating to hook a wealthy patron and get herself set up with her own bar or restaurant. Seeing little future for herself, she plans to commit suicide with pills she’s been saving up. As she prepares to do so, her story is told in flashback and we learn that she was adopted as a child and, as an adult, has had a series of disappointing relationships with a variety of men. These include university lecturer Matsuzaki (Ryo Ikebe), middle-aged lawyer Hata (Tadao Takashima), young TV producer Shimizu (Ichiro Arishima), and old-flame-made-good Nogata (Tatsuya Mitsuhashi). However, the only one she’s ever really loved is older art critic Takashima (Shuji Sano), as he’s the only one who’s never made a pass at her, but perhaps she’s idealised him too much…

 

Ikeuchi and Shuji Sano

 

Based on a prize-winning novel of the same name by Shohei Ooka – best known for Fires on the Plain – the story of this Tokyo Eiga production (distributed by Toho) was inspired by the life of Mutsuko Sakamoto (1915-58), a Ginza bar hostess with whom Ooka had had an eight-year-long affair before she committed suicide. The adaptation by Ryuzu Kikushima (one of Kurosawa’s regular collaborators) is extremely faithful to the book, which was translated into English as The Shade of Blossoms by Dennis Washburn and published in 1998 by the University of Michigan Press (the title refers to the shade under blossoming cherry or plum trees). Both film and novel have an almost shockingly sad ending without a trace of sentimentality, and director Yuzo Kawashima has done a fine job of bringing the story to life without imposing his own ego upon it. When he (or perhaps Kikushima) does add something – like Hata’s adopted daughter killing a worm in the garden after her father has thoughtlessly pointed out to Yoko that she’s not his by blood – it’s entirely appropriate and helps to illustrate the emotions of the characters. 

 

 

Yoko, a hostess who is weary of men, knows every seduction trick in the book only too well and seems in danger of sliding into alcoholism, is 38 years old in the novel, and would have been a perfect fit for Hideko Takamine, then 37. However, Tokyo Eiga went with the 28-year-old Junko Ikeuchi, whom they had just signed after her previous studio Shintoho had gone bankrupt. Although she’s a little young for the role, Ikeuchi could perhaps pass for a very well-preserved 38, but in any case she gives an excellent performance and manages to put Yoko’s complex emotions across very well. The remainder of the cast are left fighting for screen time as there are an unusually large number of important characters – indeed, it’s unusual to see Ryo Ikebe and Chikage Awashima in such small roles (Awashima plays the former mistress of Nogata’s deceased father). Sei Ikeno’s harpsichord-dominated score also adds a touch of class to the proceedings and never tries to manipulate our emotions in an obvious way. 

 

Tatsuya Mihashi, Ikeuchi and Chikage Awashima 

 

Shohei Ooka is on record as saying that Yukio Mishima was effusive in his praise of the book and that, after Mishima’s suicide, he felt convinced that it was this theme of Yoko wanting to end her own life while she was still beautiful that had appealed to him so much. 

 

Ryo Ikebe and Ikeuchi

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles) 

The Flesh is Weak / 美徳のよろめき / Bitoku no yoromeki (‘Faltering Virtue’, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #174

Yumeji Tsukioka

 

28-year-old Setsuko (Yumeji Tsukioka), a former member of the aristocracy, has come down in the world somewhat after the war and ended up marrying below her class to Ichiro (Rentaro Mikuni), whose uncouth table manners appal her. 

 

Rentaro Mikuni

 

Despite being a wife and mother, she’s unable to forget her first love, Tsuchiya (Ryoji Hayama), especially as she keeps running into him (small place, Tokyo!). When her mother dies, Tsuchiya attends the funeral and, while paying his respects, whispers in Setsuko’s ear that he will be waiting for her the following day at 3 pm at a shrine. They start seeing each other on the sly, but he seems like such a nice guy that she believes it will remain platonic and her conscience will be clear. However, he has a weird fixation with eating breakfast naked… 

 

Ryoji Hayama

 

When Setsuko’s best friend, Yoshiko (Chikako Miyagi) – who is cheating on her own husband – arranges an excuse for Setsuko and Tsuchiya to sneak off to a hotel in Izu together, Setsuko freaks out when her uncle turns up at the hotel with some golfing buddies, stretching this film’s coincidence quota to the limit. Furthermore, Tsuchiya starts having non-platonic thoughts and tries to act on them, but finds himself rebuffed by Setsuko, who feels that she must remain faithful to her husband and certainly doesn’t want to eat breakfast naked with anyone…

 

 

This Nikkatsu production was adapted by Kaneto Shindo from a newly-published bestselling novel by Yukio Mishima (yet to be translated into English, but available in Chinese and Italian). The opening narration by actor Masaya Takahashi goes on for over 10 minutes and betrays the film’s literary origins. However, while the ending is apparently close to that of the novel, what happens in between is quite different, and it appears that Mishima’s original had Setsuko carrying on an extended sexual affair with Tsuchiya which results in two pregnancies, both of which are aborted. They also eat breakfast naked together, but I guess you couldn’t show that in a film in 1957 (so why have them talk about it, you may well ask). Anyway, although Mishima himself did not regard the novel as one of his serious literary efforts, he was not impressed and wrote in his diary that he could not imagine a more stupid movie. 

 

 

It doesn’t help that Setsuko is a self-pitying snob who is unnecessarily stern to her good-humoured maid, making it hard to feel much sympathy for her. Nikkatsu’s biggest female star at the time, Yumeji Tsukioka, does as well as can be expected under the circumstances, but Rentaro Mikuni is wasted in a role with little substance and Ryoji Hayama fails to make much impression as Tsuchiya. 

 

Chikako Miyagi

 

Chikako Miyagi fares better as the cheerfully amoral and flashily-dressed Yoshiko, and it’s nice to see Koreya Senda – who had just played a rare leading role in director Ko Nakahira’s Temptation – pop up again here as Setsuko’s dad. 

 

Koreya Senda

Nakahira also seemed to have a fondness for his namesake, actor Ko Nishimura, who appeared in at least half a dozen of his films, including this one in which he has a small part as a blind masseur who sees things his client (Setsuko) can’t. If only Nakahira could have seen the defects in the script… 

 

Ko Nishimura

 

Thanks to A.K.