Women Who Do Not Divorce / Rikon shinai onna (1986)

One of the highlights of the revival of the romantic melodrama in Japan during the eighties is Women Who Do Not Divorce, whose title is a bit misleading since both the principal women eventually do get divorces. Because it was directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro, I went into it expecting a pink film of higher quality …

Symphony Pastorale / Denen kokyogaku (1937)

For any viewers who stumble on Symphony Pastorale on the very low resolution version on YouTube (hence no screen captures), its primary interest will be a chance to see Setsuko Hara in one of her earliest major roles. However, the movie also illustrates how difficult it was for the Japanese to adapt foreign literature before …

Ancient City / Old Capital / Koto (1980)

Koto, Kon Ichikawa’s version of Kawabata’s The Old Capital, is if anything even more quiet, subtle, and beautiful, than the 1963 film version made when the book was first published. The temples and palaces of old Kyoto are not visible, but the portrayal of the quiet side streets of the obi weavers and designers have …

Woman in the Typhoon Area / Taifuken no onna (1948)

A gang of smugglers elude the coast guard but run out of fuel and find themselves marooned on a small island weather station, just as a typhoon is about to hit. Once we add that the gang leader has his woman with him, anyone with a subscription to TCM can probably predict what will happen …

Three Women in the North / Kita no san-nin (1945)

Three Women in the North is a fascinating movie, but not for its plot. Essentially, this is the story of a plane on a secret mission that has to get its cargo of soldiers to one of Japan’s northernmost small islands, despite engine trouble, terrible storms, and later an air attack by the Americans. We …

Setsuko Hara

I only recently realized that I had missed the centennial of Setsuko Hara's birth (6/17/1920)  which would have been a good time to make a few comments about her career. I must preface this by saying, as with everything in my blog, these are the views of an outsider, and I know I am an …

Daughter, Wife, Mother* / Musume tsuma haha (1960)

For much of the time, it looks like Naruse is finally going to make a movie with a happy ending for his female principals, but he can't quite bring himself to do so. Unfortunately, he doesn't really have one of his usual disheartening endings either. Instead, he and his script-writers opt for no ending at …

Life of a Horsetrader / Bakuro ichidai (1951)

Even after all the surprising Japanese movies I've discovered from the post-war years, it's possible Life of a Horsetrader is the most unexpected. Based on a popular novel of the day, it is a real Hollywood movie in story and in looks. It is rather like seeing all the Wallace Beery movies ever made now …

Early Summer / Bakushu (1951)

I began my serious interest in Japanese movies because I wanted to try to understand how the Japanese coped with the destruction of their country and its reorganization by the Americans. This led me to a fascinating and varied world of movies with which I fell in love but, ironically perhaps, the most "Japanese" filmakers …

A Note on Kurosawa (II)

In his lifetime, Kurosawa was often criticized in Japan for being too western, somehow not really "Japanese." This particular criticism had always confused me, not least because I came to Japanese films through Kurosawa, as did most Americans, so that he provided the initial paradigm of a Japanese movie.  As I became more familiar with …