Obscure Japanese Film #38
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| Ayako Wakao |
In the 19th of her 20 films for director Yasuzo Masumura, Ayako Wakao stars as Mariko, the frustrated wife of Tetsuya (Etsushi Takahashi), a salaryman who works long hours and spends little time at home. They plan a holiday away together, but it’s no surprise to Mariko when he decides he simply can’t afford the time off. She decides to make a solo trip to a fishing village in Izu to stay with Katsue (Hiroko Machida), who used to work for her parents but is now married with two young children. Mariko has barely got off the bus before she has attracted the attention of the local stud, Shigeo (Kinya Kitaoji) as well as the enmity of the local good-time girl, Kyoe (Mayumi Nagisa).
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| Kinya Kitaoji dangles his lady-bait |
Shigeo’s seduction technique is to fling a large dead fish at girls he likes – it works with Kyoe, so he tries it on Mariko too, but she seems less impressed. However, she begins to feel lonely and Shigeo is the only one paying her any attention, so she gives into him after he’s slapped her around a bit and kicked sand in her face. Unfortunately, just as she’s begun enjoying gallivanting around the village with Shigeo, her husband unexpectedly turns up.
Mayumi Nagisa
Having seen almost all of the Masmura-Wakao collaborations now, it’s hard not to feel that they should have called it a day after number 17 (The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka). The projects they worked on together after that are noticeably less ambitious, presumably because Daiei Studios was feeling the squeeze due to the increasing popularity of television in Japan at the time. One response to this was to make cheaper movies, while another was to provide content that TV could not – namely sex, violence and nudity. Both reactions are in evidence here. Wakao’s co-stars are less distinguished than usual and there’s little evidence of any significant amounts of money having been spent on the production. In fact, it all looks a bit cheap and hastily-shot, and further signs of desperation can be found in Mariko’s nude scenes, obviously achieved by means of a body double as her face is always conveniently obscured in these shots. One wonders whether Wakao even knew what they were up to.
Etsushi Takahashi and Ayako Wakao
Wakao is really the
only reason to watch this and gives her usual excellent performance. Shigeo, with his greased-back hair, leather
jacket and motorbike is so macho he seems absurd nowadays, especially as
Kitaoji’s acting is nowhere near Wakao’s standard, at least at this stage in
his career. Worse still, the film feels padded even at a slender 82 minutes,
with Masumura having two very similar motorbike-race scenes close together,
while a sequence in which Shigeo rides round and round Mariko and her husband
at a bus stop in an effort to intimidate them goes on so long it becomes boring.
While One Day at Summer’s End is not
a terrible film, it’s not a good one either and I would probably rank it as the
least of the Masmura-Wakao collaborations, although she does have a better role here than in some of the others.
Kitaoji and Wakao
The source of the simple story is a novel by Saho Sasazawa (1930-2002), a prolific writer of pulp mysteries who occasionally attempted something more serious; he also later played the heroine’s father in the bonkers horror comedy House (1977).
The Japanese title, Nureta futari, means 'The Two Who Got Wet', but ‘wet’ has a double meaning in Japan, so could equally be translated as ‘The Two Who Made Love.’
