Tag: Soji Kiyokawa

Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (續 姿三四郎, Akira Kurosawa, 1945)

Posted on by

Sanshiro Sugata had not especially pleased the censors who took a scalpel to it, excising a few elements they found problematic, but the film proved popular enough with audiences for the government to commission a sequel. Apparently somewhat reluctantly, Akira Kurosawa returned to the world of Sanshiro Sugata picking up almost in real time two years later with a conflicted Sanshiro (Susumu Fujita) still wandering around Yokohama avoiding the woman he loves whose father may have died due to injuries inflicted on him during his fight with Sanshiro. Yet where the first film had essentially presented a spiritual odyssey through the medium of judo, part two is a much more nakedly propagandistic affair. 

It some ways it’s a little ironic that Sanshiro has almost become a folk hero who stands up for the oppressed Japanese against the looming threat of Western imperialism as mediated through the contest between Japanese martial arts and American boxing. The film opens with a drunken American sailor berating the teenage boy pulling his rickshaw and eventually attacking him only to run into Sanshiro and get a swift hiding. The thankful boy recognises his name and decides that he wants to learn judo too so he can defend himself against external threat, but Sanshiro isn’t sure he should be teaching anyone because he still has a lot to learn and is otherwise unable to escape his guilt over having contributed to the deaths of others through the practice of his art. His internalised shame is only deepened when he’s asked to participate in a spectacle match against a top American boxer and declines only to be told off by the guy who decided to accept. He used to be a jiujitsu champ, but ever since Sanshiro brought about the judo revolution no one cares about jiujitsu anymore and it’s ruined his livelihood. 

There is it seems a degree of shame in fighting for money, but more so in fighting for the entertainment of others. When Sanshiro visits the boxing ring, the sport is depicted as vulgar and primitive. The baying crowd are there largely for blood, riled up by the violent spectacle and eager to see a man in the extremities of a bodily struggle. For Sanshiro, it’s a depressing and offensive sight and to participate in it is to bring shame on Japanese martial arts. Meanwhile, the judo school is also threatened by two thuggish brothers keen to prove the superiority of karate over judo by defeating Sanshiro. They are also brothers of the first film’s villain Higaki who was reformed after his fight with Sanshiro but has since apparently fallen into ill health and listlessness, but so certain that Sanshiro is the only man who can save Japanese martial arts that he gives him the secrets of his brothers’ techniques. 

The final battle mimics that of the first film save taking place amid heavy snow and howling wind. Sanshiro once wins over his opponents through his kindness, taking them into the warm and looking after them until they begin to recover. One of the brothers briefly picks up a meat cleaver before thinking better of it as the two of them grin and admit defeat. Yet Sanshiro’s real battle is indeed against the American imperialists, wilfully breaking Yano’s cardinal rules by deciding to agree to the spectacle fight and easily defeating the American boxer who ends up just passing out from the force of Sanshiro’s aura. The jiujitsu practitioner who seemed to resent him before breaks down in tears and offers his sincere thanks to Sanshiro for standing up for Japan against the Americans.

The contemporary context is clear, this time around judo is much less about spirituality than it is about victory as much as Sanshiro likes to say that it isn’t winning and losing that’s important. Sanshiro becomes the saviour of Japanese martial arts, now endangered by the rising popularity of Western boxing, but also indirectly of the Japanese people in standing up against an encroaching external threat in direct contrast to the slimy Fubiki (Ichiro Sugai), a dandyish interpreter to the Americans forever dressed in foppish suits and seemingly content to do their bidding. “You haven’t changed at all,” Yano scoffs of Sanshiro’s two years of fruitless travelling and it’s clear he still has a lot to learn, putting his romance with the long-suffering Sayo once again “on the back burner”, while remaining true to himself even if not quite the monster the children sing of, a relentlessly honest man and seemingly the lone defender giving hope to an increasingly anxious Japan.

Sanshiro Sugata (姿三四郎, Akira Kurosawa, 1943)

Posted on by

It might seem curious in some ways to make a film about the importance of humanity in martial arts during a time of war, but Akira Kurosawa’s debut feature Sanshiro Sugata (姿三四郎, Sugata Sanshiro) does just this in depicting the hero’s coming of age as a gradual progress towards awakening as he learns to attain control over body and mind through the modern discipline of judo. Based on a novel by Tsuneo Tomita, the film is in many ways a typical martial arts drama in which a young hopeful seeks a master and must eventually face a rival, but lends a note of poetry to the tale which is in other ways perhaps out of keeping with its times. 

The times of the film, however, are late Meiji as demonstrated in the lively opening sequence which ventures into a town in transition where policemen in Western-style uniforms walk the streets alongside townspeople dressed largely in kimono as is the hero, Sanshiro Sugata (Susumu Fujita), who’s come looking for a famous jiujitsu master. Taken on as a pupil, he overhears the master, Momma (Yoshio Kosugi), disparaging a rival, Yano (Denjiro Okochi), who has come up with a new martial art he calls judo which is fast gaining both respect and popularity. Momma thinks it’s all just a branding exercise and Yano’s “judo” is just repackaged jiujitsu, irritated that he seems primed to take a prestigious position as a trainer to the police force which runs its own martial arts contest. Sanshiro goes with them when they attempt to ambush Yano and teach him a lesson only to be easily defeated and humiliatingly thrown in the local river. Sanshiro immediately switches his allegiance, discarding his geta to give Yano a ride home in his rickshaw.

As Yano repeatedly tries to teach Sanshiro, judo is more than a martial arts discipline and places humanity at the centre of everything. This is a difficult lesson for the hot-headed Sanshiro to learn, quickly falling foul of his new master after brawling in the red light district and dramatically throwing himself into the pond. Clinging to a pole, he refuses to get out until Yano forgives him, but in true master fashion Yano merely says that getting out of the pond or not is entirely up to him. It’s while he’s in there, and after a few words from a Buddhist monk, that he witnesses a lotus flower slowing unfolding and achieves a kind of enlightenment that allows him to realise he’s been childish and petulant, finally getting out of the water to submit himself to the rigorous discipline of the martial arts life. 

The flower motif recurs several times, not least being its subversion when antagonist Higaki (Ryunosuke Tsukigata) sprinkles the ash of his cigarette over it. Making his first appearance in dandyish Western dress, Higaki is described as a snake-like villain, his evilness emphasised by his non-Japanese attire in contrast to pretty much everyone else who continues to dress in kimono. Higaki vows that his fight with Sanshiro must be to the death, in part a fight between the nascent art of judo originating in the post-feudal society and the traditional art of jiujitsu, but echoing Sanshiro’s first fight with former master Momma which resulted in his death and plunged the hero into spiritual conflict. He then experiences something similar when realising that he has inadvertently fallen in love with Sayo (Yukiko Todoroki) the pure-hearted daughter of another rival, Murai (Takashi Shimura), who also desires to fight him but as it turns out only in his desire to face a worthy opponent. Sanshiro wants to back away, afraid that he may humiliate or even kill the father of the woman he loves but is brought back to himself by more words from the monk who tells him that he must be as innocent as she is and engage in the fight in a sportsmanlike fashion as a spiritual as well as physical contest. 

This is also to some degree true of his final confrontation with Higaki which too is a confrontation with the evils of the age if less comfortably also satisfying the censors by allowing Higaki to stand in for foreignness in general. Higaki is indeed often accompanied by the sound of the wind which echoes his modernity, the fight taking place in a large windswept field below roiling clouds as the two men grapple despite the advice of their intermediary to call it off before one of them really dies. Higaki does in a sense die a sort of death in that we’re told after the fight he reformed and also managed to find a similar kind of enlightenment to Sanshiro who is then bashful and romantic while heading off on another journey from which he assures Sayo he will soon return. It’s true enough that there doesn’t seem to be much that would appeal to the censors of 1943 save the implied defeat of Western powers and celebration of Japanese martial arts given that humanity is repeatedly emphasised as the core component of judo and that Sanshiro achieves an individual enlightenment rather than finding peace as a member of a team or community, but they did otherwise decide to cut a substantial amount of the film said to contain a love scene and references to alcoholism that they deemed improper. Nevertheless, there are shades of Kurosawa’s later greatness even here in his dramatic composition and expressionistic use of nature to detail one boy’s journey into manhood through the spiritual rather than physical gymnastics of the philosophy of judo. 

Sincerity (まごころ, Mikio Naruse, 1939)

Posted on by

When the daughter of a poor family leapfrogs that of a rich one to be named top of the class, it exposes a series of hypocrisies and contradictions within the militarist order in Mikio Naruse’s 1939 drama, Sincerity (まごころ, Magokoro). The film opens, however, with a parade led by the Patriotic Women’s Association seeing young men off war. The group is led by Mrs Asada (Sachiko Murase), the mother of the rich girl, Nobuko (Etchan), who is busy giving orders to the other women regarding the air defence watch and sweet potato market which seems very forward thinking for the time period.

But in other ways it’s Mrs Asada who comes in for the greatest criticism as her bossiness and involvement with patriotic activity is depicted as a kind of displacement activity to mitigate her sense of uselessness and unhappiness in her marriage to arch militarist Kei (Minoru Takada) whom she fears is still hung up on his old girlfriend, Tsuta (Takako Irie), who is also the mother of Tomiko (Teruko Kato), the poor girl and apparent model student who has just displaced Nobuko as the cleverest girl in the class. Through Mrs Asada is rightly concerned that Nobuko has dropped a whole 10 places, Kei is not bothered by it at all because she is physically robust and healthy, which are the two most important qualities from a militarist perspective, leaving aside the fact that many wouldn’t regard a woman’s academic success as particularly important. Indeed, Kei is dismissive of his wife. Mrs Asada suggests that he finds her “stupid” and that their daughter is “stupid” by extension while Tsuta’s is clever and earnest because Tsuta is the same. He tells her that a child’s education is the mother’s responsibility and it’s probably her fault for busying herself outside of the home with her wartime activities with the implication that she’s been neglecting her child and that’s why her grades have fallen.

This point seems contradictory seeing that even at this stage, the nation expects women to serve their country in ways other than dedicating themselves to their families which is a responsibility secondary to that they owe to the emperor. Nevertheless, the implication remains that she’s doing it for the wrong reasons because what she enjoys is the status it gives her and the power of being in charge. Unlike Tsuta who has no husband, Mrs Asada’s family is wealthy with servants to take care of the domestic work so has nothing to do all day, while it’s also clear that the marriage is more or less dead and Kei does not particularly care for her, which he later admits, though partly because he has already rededicated himself to the nation in eagerly anticipating his call-up letter. When he’s first introduced, Kei is admiring a sword he’s having made ready for when he gets his papers to enlist as an officer. 

It’s a remark about Kei’s call-up that first sets alarm bells off in Tomiko in noticing the sadness it provokes in her mother, itself a little transgressive from a propaganda perspective. The grades situation doesn’t affect the girls’ friendship in the slightest, though this sudden reckoning with the past does begin to place a wedge between them not only in a growing awareness of their class differences but an awkwardness about the complicated situation between their parents which they are not well equipped to fully understand. Tsuta first tries to tell Nobuko the truth, but it upsets her so much that she lies instead and says that it’s true she knew Kei in the past but only as an acquaintance not a romantic partner. Nevertheless, the fact that she called him “Kei” rather than “Keikichi” or whatever his surname was before he married into Mrs Asada’s family suggests a great degree of intimacy which is something Tomiko seems to pick up on. 

There’s a persistent implication that Kei may be the father of both girls, which further reinforces the idea that their contrasting characters are a product of the way their mothers have raised them. Nobuko is described as self-involved and lazy, characteristics which reflect her privileged upbringing and sense of entitlement. Mrs Asada tries to talk to her new teacher, Mr Iwata, but his opinion is that Nobuko was most likely coasting and is struggling now because the work is more difficult and she hasn’t learned how to study or developed a consciousness that results are born of what you put into them. She, and her mother, simply expect to come top because it’s what a girl of her status deserves. Her displacement is a discomforting inversion of the social order. In this, the film both undercuts and reinforces militarist ideology in stressing the importance of hard work for all while doing so at the expense of a reverence for feudalistic ideas of class hierarchy. 

It’s this class divide that is transgressed when Kei sends the present of an expensive French doll to Tomiko after she and her mother come to Nobuko’s rescue when she cuts her foot on some sharp rocks while the girls’ are playing together at the river. The gift seems rather extravagant for the relatively minor act of kindness Tomiko and her mother performed which accidentally reunited Tsuta and Kei though neither of them say very much and while Tsuta seems to look at him longingly, Kei appears indifferent. Nevertheless, the grandmother suggests the doll reflects Kei’s sincere heart with the implication that it reflects his continuing attachment to Tsuta. Tsuta wants to refuse it, but realises she can’t because Mrs Asada likely doesn’t know and her finding out would just cause more trouble, though it’s a painful reminder of her romantic disappointment. 

Tomiko ends up sending it back herself with a note for Nobuko explaining everything. Nobuko then limps off with her injured foot to return the doll to Tomiko and tell her none of that matters, she wants her to have the doll anyway. The doll then becomes a symbol of the sisterhood between the girls and the erasure of the class boundary between them. Tomiko can be seen holding the doll when they join the parade to send Kei off to war, while Tsuta and Mrs Asada also smooth out the misunderstandings between them to celebrate Kei’s mobilisation together. The message here is more that old differences must now be put aside so that everyone can serve the nation together rather than selfishly fixating on personal drama such as wounded pride or romantic heartbreak. Even so, Naruse slightly undercuts the patriotic conclusion with the hint of sadness on Tsuta’s face before she recomposes herself to smile at Mrs Asada and reinforce the sense of solidarity between them, while what we’re left with is the memories of the idyllic countryside setting and sense of pastoral serenity along with the sincerity of the relationship of the two girls which is rooted not in patriotism but genuine friendship that cares nothing for the divisions of social class or the rigidities of the adult world.

Sincerity screens at Japan Society New York May 10 as part of Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us – Part I.

Images: Collection of National Film Archive of Japan

365 Nights (三百六十五夜, Kon Ichikawa, 1948)

Posted on by

For his second film at Shintoho, Kon Ichikawa had wanted to adapt a story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa that later inspired Rashomon, but was handed a standard melodrama to direct first. Ichikawa apparently did not think much of the novel the film was to be based on nor the script by Kennosuke Tateoka which he subsequently brushed up with the help of his new wife Natto Wada, and it’s not difficult to see why he might have felt he had an uphill battle. Melodrama is after all a genre that is founded on coincidence, though 365 Nights (三百六十五夜, Sambyaku-rokujugo ya) quickly strains credulity with the sheer number of unlikely events and surprise reappearances along with its rather strange take on the contemporary post-war society which is undoubtedly influenced by the demands of the Occupation censorship regime. 

Indeed, the setting itself seems reminiscent of 1930s cinema following the dashing hero Koroku, played by the equally dashing Ken Uehara, an architect who has walked away from his privileged upbringing as the son of a successful construction magnate. His problem is that he’s being aggressively courted by the haughty Ranko (Hideko Takamine), also the daughter of a successful but shady businessman, who to modern eyes is basically stalking him. Grinning with an evil glint in her eye, she tells her minion Tsugawa (Yuji Hori) that she’ll have seduced Koroku within 365 days which by melodrama standards seems to give her quite a lot of leeway.

Clueing us up to her villainy, Ranko is always seen wearing incredibly stylish Western outfits but otherwise behaves in a transgressively masculine fashion ordering her male employees about while set on the sexual conquest of Koroku who despises her for everything she is. It’s difficult not to see an inherent criticism of the new post-war woman and an anxiety regarding the power that comes with wealth being wielded by someone who is not a man. The contrast between Ranko and traditional femininity is rammed home by the fact that Teruko (Hisako Yamane), the daughter of the landlady in the house where Koroku finds new lodging after moving home to escape Ranko, is always dressed in kimono and otherwise naive and innocent. 

This positions Ranko, and her minion Tsugawa who is also in love with her, as the villains who are rebelling against the kind of earnestness expressed by Koroku and Teruko. From more humble origins, Tsugawa is deeply resentful of Kokoku’s class privilege and feels that he looks down on him which is one reason he seeks revenge by destroying his life along with his sexual jealously that Ranko pays him no attention yet is fixated on Kokoku perhaps precisely because he is entirely uninterested in her though it remains mystery why you’d want to be married to someone who strongly dislikes you. 

Yet for all his own earnestness, Koroku is almost betrayed by the capitalist father of whom he also seems to disapprove when he asks him to consent to an arranged marriage with Ranko to save his business. Meanwhile, it also transpires that Teruko’s father has been absent from her life because he two has a criminal past further tainting the legacy each of them bear. Ichikawa stages each evolution of their relationship at the same, noirish street corner that seems to exist as a kind of border between the illicit underworld that seeps out from Tsugawa’s bar into the post-war society, and the geniality represented by Teruko’s otherwise nice, middle-class home. 

It’s the this transgressive quality, of being caught between these two worlds, that starts to eat away at Koroku leaving him a broken and shabby man little better than a tramp. In a break with melodrama norms, though he is aware that he has led Teruko into Tsugawa’s trap he comes to believe that she has betrayed him while she clings fiercely to her love and in the end attempts to sacrifice it basically giving Koroku to Ranko whom she believes can better care for him in his now corrupted state. Though events become grim with a wedding that is staged like a funeral and takes place at a death bed, there is also the sense that something must come right that seems a little incongruous and perhaps a concession to the censors board as may be the coda implying that Ranko, despite having undergone a kind of redemption, will also have to pay for all her dodgy dealings. Though clearly hampered by the material, Ichikawa crafts some stunning images such as the final scene at Tsugawa’s bar along with a surprisingly energetic action sequence during which Koroku fights off burglars at Teruko’s home and wins her heart with his manliness. In any case despite the hints at redemption the implication remains that this is a world dark at its core in which not even the earnest can escape its creeping corruption. 

The Most Beautiful (一番美しく, Akira Kurosawa, 1944)

Posted on by

“One can’t improve productivity without improving one’s character” the manager of a factory crafting lenses for the military repeatedly insists, though by “character” he largely seems to mean a total erasure of the self in favour of service to the state. Kurosawa’s second feature is a National Policy Film intended to foster a spirit of patriotic fervour in which not only the factory girls at its centre but everyone else too must “become an outstanding human being” forgoing all human feeling to ensure Japan will win a war even the film seems to concede is already lost. 

Indeed, even for a relatively late propaganda film, The Most Beautiful (一番美しく, Ichiban Utsukushiku) makes little attempt to gloss over the undercurrent of defeat. At one point names of foreign territories fallen to the Americans briefly flash up on the screen leaving the girls looking increasingly bereft if resolving to work even harder. Then again even in the opening which sees all the workers lined up in military fashion it’s obvious that the factory is staffed by those who have not been deployed to more pressing duties, overwhelmingly teenage girls along with boys too young for the army, old men and those otherwise unable to serve in the military. 

Even so the atmosphere among the young women is often cheerful though the film is keen to show them overcoming their loneliness while bowing to photos of their far off parents, often farmers, in distant parts of Japan. They are looked after by a kind of nurse/chaperone, Mrs Mizushima (Takako Irie) whose husband has already been killed in the war marking her out as an example of the self-sacrifice that is being asked of the girls. Many of them have come of their own volition expressly to support the war effort and take their work incredibly seriously especially as the factory manager reminds them that the lenses they make are crucial to to production of military instrumentation and without them there would be no fighter planes or sniper rifles. 

So self-sacrificing are they that the girls go into huff when it’s announced that the factory will be entering a period of increased productivity (another thinly veiled hint that the war is not going well), yet they are upset not because they resent being asked to work harder, nor by the implication that they have more to give than they have been giving, but by the fact they’ve been underestimated having had their quotas increased by only 50% as opposed to the men’s 100%. Their leader, Watanabe (Yoko Yaguchi), explains that, though they know they cannot match the men, they are sure they can do better and will produce at least 2/3 more rather than just half. The managers seem to think that this is naive, but are wary of talking the girls down in fear of damaging their morale which they see as the most crucial thing when it comes to generating “productivity”. Yet that notion of “morale” is mostly a kind of internecine peer pressure brokered by petty competition and a desire not to be the one who lets everyone else down. Hence the girls continue working while they’re sick, which is no good at all for productivity if all they do is spread it around while unable to work at full capacity, afraid to tell anyone in case they get sent home to recover. 

Watanabe is tempted to to take a trip to see her family after receiving a letter from her father to say that her mother has been taken ill, though her parents are also fiercely patriotic and insist that she should not leave but stay and do her duty. She is guilted out of her temptation by another girl, Yamaguchi (Shizuko Yamaguchi), who is sickly by nature but has been hiding her suffering in order to be allowed to stay. Being out of the line fosters feelings of guilt and failure, not only in having let the country down but in increasing the burden on their friends who will now have to work harder in their stead. The “character” that they are supposed to be building, is in the end only in service of their “productivity” that they work to the point of collapse with no thought for themselves or their feelings wilfully sacrificing the opportunity to see dying relatives to prove their dedication. 

In what now might seem like subversive touches but just as well may have been sincere, Kurosawa often flashes signs and slogans which appear in the factory including one urging the girls to “follow the example of the war dead” suggesting that the only real way to prove your devotion is to die in the service of the emperor. On the other hand, the girls don’t actually seem to do a lot of factory work but are otherwise expected to participate in band practice banging out military marches on the drum or else improving their physicality through playing volleyball. In any case as they begin wear themselves out tempers begin to fray leaving the girls at odds, tired and resentful if not actively hopeless in beginning to realise they probably won’t make their overly ambitious quota as a tacit acceptance that Japan most likely is not going to win the war and all their efforts are for nothing. At the film’s conclusion, Mrs Mizushima exclaims that Watanabe has become “such a good girl”, ironically forced to abandon the directly filial for the national in prioritising her role as an imperial daughter rather than a biological one. Even so, the film discovers a much more comfortable sense of solidarity between the young women even if brokered by militarist fervour and a nihilistic bid for self-destruction in perpetual servitude. 

The Most Beautiful screens at the BFI Southbank, London on 1st & 9th January 2023 as part of the Kurosawa season.

Ghost Cat of Nabeshima (鍋島怪猫伝, Kunio Watanabe, 1949)

Posted on by

When is a ghost cat not a ghost cat? Drawing inspiration from classic folklore and kabuki theatre, the ghost cat movie had been a popular genre of pre-war cinema yet thereafter fell out of favour before a brief resurgence in the 50s and 60s. Inspired by the classic vampire cat legend, 1949’s Ghost Cat of Nabeshima (鍋島怪猫伝, Nabeshima Kaibyo-den) was part of a wave of post-war kaibyo yet in a slightly meta touch features no actual “ghost cat” leveraging instead the superstitious fear of their existence along with a mild prejudice towards otherwise supernaturally cute kitties. 

Set in the feudal era, the central drama revolves around a weakened lord, a supposedly cursed Go board, and local hysteria about a dangerous ghost cat lurking round the palace that has the townspeople nervous enough to have organised a patrol on the look out for suspicious-looking felines. A store owner has recently taken in an ornate Go board which has sent his wife into a minor frenzy because it looks just like the one from the local temple which she knows to be haunted by the vengeful spirit of a man who was killed during a dispute over a particularly heated game. As such, she pushes him to sell it as quickly as possible which he does to a lower level samurai whose gaming companion is so weirded out by the bad vibes emanating from the board that he gives it away to villainous retainer Tanuma (Ureo Egawa). Tanuma then gifts it to the rather effete lord ignoring the advice of his noble rival Komori (Denjiro Okochi) that Go is bad for the lord’s health both mental and physical. 

Komori may in a sense be proved right when, lacking a companion, the lord decides to summon Matashichiro (Haruo Tanaka) who is reputed to be a good player. Matashichiro is something of a Go obsessive and had been planning to leave for Edo in order to train with a true master partly it seems because he is carrying a chip on his shoulder as his family has been reduced in circumstances leaving him with few opportunities. On seeing the board, however, he appears to have something of an episode repeating the earlier tragedy in insisting the lord is playing “unfairly” before starting a fight during which the lord accidentally kills him, Matashichiro’s adorable black kitten Kuro leaving tiny bloody footprints as he scuttles away to relative safety glaring at the lord as he goes.

The lord thereafter develops an intense fear of cats, half-believing Kuro has become a bakeneko out to get him. All of this plays directly into the hands of Tanuma who is secretly plotting against the lord and hopes to capitalise on the ghost cat rumours while simultaneously making the lord seem mad in order to usurp and manipulate him. Tanuma had rejected concern over the cursed nature of the board insisting that “supernatural things don’t exist” while suggesting “weak government” is the reason such rumours were allowed to arise in the first place though it later becomes clear he too is manipulating them later sending out one of his minions in a ghost cat outfit with the instruction to cause trouble to keep the townspeople afraid. Komori, meanwhile, the good samurai later reminds the lord that he brought some of this on himself in his selfishness, failing to properly care for his subjects such as the rebellious Sanpei (Yataro Kurokawa) who openly disparages him while encouraging a peasant revolt in the face of samurai indifference. 

In this, there is perhaps a message for the immediate post-war world in the peasants’ frequent mistaken assertion that greed is good and a necessary tool for survival, Sanpei and the others half-heartedly taking part in a cat cull ordered by the increasingly paranoid lord which creates further animosity towards the samurai authorities from local people who love their cats and won’t stand for their beloved pets being sold off and killed because of a bizarre rumour about a vengeful feline spirit. One of the reasons cited for the decline in popularity of the ghost cat film is that post-war audiences simply no longer took such things seriously and some of that flippancy is indeed seen in the attitudes of some of the townspeople who are quick to dismiss such ridiculous superstition. Yet there are ghostly apparitions only they’re very much human if perhaps mildly linked to feline activity, a dishevelled Matashichiro appearing in front of the lord to remind him of his crime while Tanuma does his best to cover it up. Here more than most, there’s a heavy implication that the spirits of the deceased are mere hallucinations of a guilty mind, but could the Go board really be responsible, it did provoke a violent rage in the otherwise dejected Matashichiro after all?

Then again, when the townspeople regain it, they realise the Go board is just a Go board experiencing very few supernatural incidents despite having it in their possession for over two months and as any cat owner knows, footprints on the tatami are hardly an unusual occurrence. “Did anyone actually see the ghost that everyone was fussing about?” a woman asks to confused silence before someone jokingly points at Matashichiro’s former girlfriend Otoyo (Michiyo Kogure) now guardian to the adorable Kuro looking like butter wound’t melt. Order has in any case been restored, the disruptive Tanuma’s schemes unmasked, the lord reminded of his proper responsibilities whether by supernatural intervention or not, and the townspeople laying aside their “greed” while rediscovering a sense of mutual solidarity not to mention affection for their feline companions. Playful to the last, Watanabe closes with a handheld zoom into the cute kitten sitting innocently atop the cursed board while the drunken townsmen snooze all around him in ominous tranquility. 

The Young Boss (花笠若衆, Kiyoshi Saeki, 1958)

Posted on by

Hibari Misora takes on yet more Edo-era corruption in Kiyoshi Saeki’s musical adventure, The Young Boss (花笠若衆, Hanagasa Wakashu, AKA A Martial Crowd, Twin Princesses). A program picture director at Toei, Saeki mainly worked on jidaigeki and ninkyo eiga launching the Brutal Tales of Chivalry series, though he also became a frequent collaborator with Misora ironically enough mostly working on her contemporary films in which she often starred opposite Ken Takakura, representative actor in the noble gangster genre. Young Boss, however, is a jidaigeki musical adventure very much typical of those Misora was making at Toei at the time and once again finds her playing dual roles as a pair of twins separated at birth because of superstition and social stigma.

Opening and closing at a local Edo festival, the film introduces us to the second generation of Edoya Kichibei, Kichisaburo (Hibari Misora), as he steps in to protect a young woman who has accidentally annoyed a bunch of yakuza fulfilling his sidekick’s introduction that he “helps the weak and crushes the strong”. Kinpachi (Juro Hoshi) also describes him as a “man’s man”, though as we discover Kichisaburo is not a man at all but the niece/adopted daughter of a prominent merchant apparently raised as a boy. Kichisaburo, however, only learns this when a pair of samurai turn up to badger Kichibei about the whereabouts of his younger sister, Sano, who apparently served as a maid to the Ogiyama clan 18 years previously but was cast out with her younger daughter Yuki after giving birth to twin girls fathered by the lord. The other twin, Chiyo (also Hibari Misora), was raised in luxury in the palace and in the absence of a male heir and the lord’s failing health is in line to inherit the clan. As usual, however, courtly intrigue has led some to conclude that Yuki’s is the proper the claim. Kichibei attempts to convince them that Yuki passed away in infancy shortly after her mother and that he burnt her birth certificate, but the resemblance between the effete Kichisaburo and the lady Chiyo has not gone unnoticed both by the visiting samurai and the handsome Matanojo (Hashizo Okawa) who joins in with Kichisaburo’s battle against the yakuza and is in fact the betrothed husband of Chiyo. 

Lady Chiyo appears only briefly but is the soul of courtly kindness, hugely regretting what has befallen her absent sister and affirming that should she return she would instantly surrender her claim to the clan in guilt that she has been raised in such luxury when Yuki was cast out to live with strangers. The dual roles in a sense reflect a perfect whole, Lady Chiyo’s feminine elegance contrasted with the rough Kichisaburo who has not been raised as a samurai but a merchant’s son like his sister set to inherit the family business. He is very attached to his adopted father, but also possesses a strong sense of justice often ignoring his pleas to stop getting into fights. Other than perhaps to disguise her true identity, there is no real explanation for why Kichisaburo has been raised as a boy though it seems that there would have been a time the ruse came to an end, Kichibei sadly lamenting that perhaps he has been jealously attempting to keep the child he loved so much with him against her better interests but explaining that he would have found her a nice husband in time, perhaps like that gallant samurai Matanojo.

Teaming up with him for purposes of revenge and justice, Kichisaburo begins to develop feelings for Matanojo though Kichibei reminds him that a townsperson would be “unfit to be a samurai’s wife”. Most of Misora’s films in which she stars as a feisty young woman see her undergoing a softening, drawing closer to conventional femininity often with marriage or at least a romance with a manly man on the horizon. The Young Boss meanwhile flirts with just this conclusion as Kichisaburo becomes Yuki while out on the road with Matanojo, dressing as an elegant princess and experiencing a vivid dream sequence in which she becomes his wife, but ultimately highlights the class rather than gender barriers between them in allowing to Yuki to return to her previous life as Kichisaburo while Chiyo remains a samurai noblewoman in a seemingly perfect mirroring which also represents a return to order. 

Nevertheless, Misora finds numerous occasions for a cheerful song even in her manly guise finally even beating a taiko drum at the closing festival while joining in with several elaborately choreographed sword fights along the way with her customary gusto. A bittersweet ending, perhaps, but one in which Misora makes division of herself and unusually is allowed to remain feisty, defiant, and independent helping the weak and crushing the strong in an ever duplicitous Edo.

Musical number (no subtitles)

https://youtu.be/INmukdi-9hs

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (虎の尾を踏む男達, Akira Kurosawa, 1952)

Posted on by

Like many directors of his age, Akira Kurosawa began his career during the war sometimes working on what were effectively propaganda films yet perhaps attempting to skirt around the least palatable implications of the task at hand. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (虎の尾を踏む男達, Tora no O wo Fumu Otokotachi) is an example of just that, repurposing a well known historical incident from its noh and kabuki roots and subtly undercutting it with a dose of irreverent humour unwelcome to those who liked historical tales because of their nationalistic connotations. This was not, however, the reason the film found itself out of favour so much as an ironically personal issue in which Kurosawa had apparently irritated one of the censors by pointing out his ignorance of cultural tradition leading him to conveniently leave Tiger’s Tail off the list of titles in production resulting in the American Censors rejecting it for being an unknown, illegal film which is why it languished on the shelf for seven years after filming was completed in 1945. The Americans may not have liked it much either given their aversion to period drama which they feared encouraged the kind of thinking incompatible with the democratic era, but like many of Kurosawa’s samurai dramas it has a rather ambivalent attitude to feudal loyalty both admiring of nobility and despairing of its austerity. 

Set in the late 12th century, the action takes place during a period of warfare in which warrior Yoshitsune (Iwai Hanshiro X) has returned a victory for his brother, the ruler. His brother Yoritomo, however, feels as if his victory has perhaps been too good and he is therefore a threat to him. Yoritomo accuses his brother of sedition and puts a purge in motion, leaving Yoshitsune with no option other than to flee. With six of his best retainers, he escapes dressed as an itinerant Buddhist monk and tries to make his way to neutral territory in the North. To get there, however, they need to pass through a series of checkpoints which is why they’re currently accompanied by a cheerful fool in the form of a lowly porter (Kenichi Enomoto) supposedly guiding them along a secret path through mountain forests. 

The porter is a new addition to the story added by Kurosawa for reasons of expediency and comic relief, yet his intrusion is also one which deeply angered the more nationalistic of the censors who resented the director’s irreverence towards a key historical event. Like many other of Kurosawa’s bumbling peasants, he’s both contemptuous and in awe of the world of the samurai, offering down to earth common sense takes on the politics of the day. He has already heard all about the Yoritomo/Yoshitsune drama and recounts it in the manner of a soap opera, quite reasonably asking if a quarrel between brothers could not have been sorted out with a good old-fashioned private fist fight rather than a state mandated manhunt which is also quite inconvenient for ordinary people in addition to being somewhat heartless. 

The samurai, not wanting to break cover, can only look sad and lament the cruelty of their codes, yet it’s precisely in the subversion of their ideology that they are able to escape. They have already transgressed, some with shaved heads and all already in the clothes of a monk. The porter looks at Yoshitsune, apparently a successful warrior, and remarks on his delicate physique and seeming femininity. Eventually he says too much, realises that the men are the fugitives everyone’s looking for and is suddenly afraid, forgetting for the moment that they need him to get out of the woods and knowing that samurai think nothing of killing “insignificant nobodies” like him. Nevertheless they do not kill him, but on hearing that there are lookouts on the horizon aware of Yoshitsune’s presence, they ask their lord to change places with a peasant, wearing his worn out clothes and carrying his heavy pack though the weight of it perhaps betrays him. As the porter points out, he does not have the look of a man used to trekking through the mountains and his delicate legs are already shaking under the unfamiliar strain. 

When the band is intercepted by loyal retainer Togashi (Susumu Fujita) who has been instructed to stop all priests in case Yoshitsune comes his way, Benkei (Denjiro Okochi), a real monk if also a warrior with a talent for bluff, manages to talk his way out of Togashi’s questioning, improvising an entire prospectus on the spot to convince him that they really are collecting money to repair a temple, quickly explaining that his robes are ornate because even ascetics have fashion sense. It’s not entirely clear if Togashi simply believes him, or if he too is wilfully subverting the code having recognised Yoshitsune and decided to help him escape. Might that not, in a certain sense, be the better way of serving a lord, preventing him from making a huge and painful mistake in killing his own brother out of a misplaced sense of paranoia? 

In any case, Benkei talks his way out of trouble only for a minor retainer to intervene, insisting that the porter is too pretty and bears a striking resemblance to Yoshitsune. Reacting quickly again, Benkei does the unthinkable. He strikes his lord and loudly berates him as if he really were a lazy porter failing in the duties for which he has been paid. The real porter becomes upset, placing himself in between Benkei’s staff and Yoshitsune’s body, either out of empathetic identification or horror in the betrayal of feudal loyalty. Benkei knows he must now be believed, no one would ever do what he has done because it is a complete and total negation of the samurai code. Yet in breaking it he saves his lord, which is all that really matters. Yoshitsune later forgives him, because he is a good lord after all and how could he not. But as Benkei was keen to keep pointing out, this isn’t the only checkpoint they must pass and their journey is without end, all they can do is “continue without rest”, taking this brief moment of unexpected levity provided by apology wine from Togashi and the hilarious antics from the porter before setting off once again. As for the porter, he is soon abandoned, left on one side of the samurai divide as the curtain closes on this brief strange tale. 

Currently streaming in the UK via BFI Player as part of Japan 2020. Also available to stream in the US via Criterion Channel.

Bull’s Eye of Love (おしどり駕篭, Masahiro Makino, 1958)

Posted on by

Masahiro Makino was best known for jidaigeki and ninkyo eiga but also had an interesting sideline in cheerful period musicals including many collaborations with post-war singing sensation Hibari Misora. Bull’s Eye of Love (おしどり駕篭, Oshidori Kago) is, like Singing Lovebirds, a musical comedy in which a samurai (in disguise) and a feisty young woman fall in love while battling the corruption of their times. Though in this case Hibari takes a back seat in fighting samurai hypocrisy, she still gives as good as she gets as she fights for love across the class divide even while accepting that she can only have her love if he consents to renounce his nobility and live as a humble plasterer. 

The trouble starts when the old lord dies and a prominent retainer, Hyobu, leaps into action, taking control of the situation in fast tracking the accession of second son Sannojo (Sentaro Fushimi) who many feel to be too immature, weak willed, and naive to lead effectively. Top servant Zenbei complains, pointing out that Sannojo has an older brother, Genjiro (Yorozuya Kinnosuke), who should be first in line. But Genjiro has long been absent from the court, apparently intent on escaping the “stuffy” samurai lifestyle. Hyobu claims not that Genjiro has forfeited his position, but that he has actively renounced it in favour of Sannojo. Zenbei is not convinced, at the very least he feels they should find Genjiro and explain the situation to find out for sure what it is he intends to do with the rest of his life. 

It happens that Genjiro is living humbly as Genta the plasterer and has fallen in love with Kocho (Hibari Misora), the proprietress of an archery parlour who also likes to put on a show every now and then. The major problem in his life is that both he and Kocho are too stubborn and proud to say “I love you” which is making them bicker endlessly as a kind of substitute. The arrival of Zenbei and another retainer blows his cover and sends his new life into disarray. He has no desire to return to the samurai world, but also knows his brother is too susceptible to manipulation to be allowed to succeed unadvised, especially as Hyobu seems to be manoeuvring to get him married to his troubled daughter Chidori (Hiroko Sakuramachi) who seems to have some kind of ongoing mental disturbance which renders her distant and childlike. His romantic hopes will have to go on the back burner for a while as he becomes “Genjiro” once again to sort out Hyobu before hopefully returning to the simple life of an Edo plasterer. 

From Kocho’s point of view, the news that Genta has hidden his true status from her is alarming on two fronts, not only that he’s “lied” about who he is, but that if he is a noble lord then they can never be together because samurai don’t marry outside of their order. Genta, however, seems to be a fairly atypical sort of samurai who is entirely uninterested in wealth, status, and the restrictive codes which bind the noble. He looks for freedom in living as an ordinary man, which may be a bit disingenuous because there’s little freedom in starving and being constantly oppressed by the cruel order he was born into, but there is truth in it. It’s also unlikely that his clan would allow him to just up and leave, disappearing into Edo era society and abnegating his responsibility, but Bull’s Eye of Love is intent on a more cheerful depiction of the samurai world than that found in many contemporary period dramas in which its heroes are allowed to choose love and freedom without being forced to sacrifice their feelings in the name of duty. 

Kocho finally confesses her love but makes clear it is for Genta, not for Genjiro, only to end up falling for Genjiro too because of his manly samurai charms coupled with an unusual sense of compassion. Despite being told to stay at home, she takes her bow and arrow and follows him, relieved to discover she didn’t need to join the fight because he’d already handled it. In a fairly strange turn of events, however, Genjiro wipes out most of the treacherous retainers but then more or less enables Hyobu’s plan by putting Sannojo in charge and agreeing that he should marry Chidori who was only playing mad to undermine her father’s nefarious schemes. Having sorted everything out, the pair leave on a more equal footing after confirming their feelings towards each other and their intentions for the future. Genjiro renounces his samurai status to live “free” in Edo, cheerfully proceeding out of the palace and into the streets singing as he goes rejecting elitist authoritarianism in favour of the earthy pleasures of warmth and friendship to live as an ordinary man unburdened by the cruel hypocrisies of samurai soceity. 

Detective Hibari 3: Hidden Coin (ひばり捕物帖　ふり袖小判, Kokichi Uchide, 1959)

Posted on by

Hibari Misora returns as Oshichi in another adventure for the Edo detective, this time becoming embroiled in a conspiracy against the Shogunate which she continues to serve. By this third instalment in the Detective Hibari series, Hidden Coin (ひばり捕物帖　ふり袖小判, Hibari Torimonocho: Furisode Koban), Oshichi is no longer hiding her noble birth as an esteemed princess, but is living as a singer/law enforcement officer under her “common” name, and upholding the interests of “common” people suffering under “corrupt” samurai oppression but, paradoxically, very much upholding the system which enables it.

The conspiracy in which Oshichi becomes involved this time around is concerned with the plot to overthrow the Shogunate. Rebel forces manage to ambush a convoy carrying tax money to the government, hoping to use the money to buy guns from the Dutch to aid their revolution. As only one of the retainers survives, he will be held responsible for the loss of the money and almost certainly asked to commit ritual suicide, but the Ota clan and most particularly retainer Kennoshin (Kotaro Satomi), are worried about the man’s daughter, Misuzu (Atsuko Nakazato), to whom he was very close. Oshichi becomes involved when she hears of an entire household being murdered and their funds stolen, while a lone pickpocket is found dead with a precious gold coin lying nearby. 

Before discovering the crime, Oshichi and her trusty sidekick Gorohachi (Takehiko Kayama) are talking to a kabuki actor who is about to undergo a succession ceremony which will cost a significant amount of money – 1000 Ryo. Gorohachi is mystified, wondering how many years he’d have to work in order to find that kind of money, while the two pickpockets outside wonder something much the same. The older of the two, Oshima (Keiko Yukishiro), wants to make sure the actor gets his money and has been desperately trying to get in touch with him but he is too snooty to see her. Oshichi starts connecting the dots between the pickpockets and the conspiracy to find a vital clue, but once again is keen to stress that “the law can be merciful too” as she both ensures that Oshima faces justice and allows her to find emotional fulfilment in revealing her true identity and finally seeing the show. 

Meanwhile, despite outwardly dressing in manly, action friendly outfits, this Oshichi is one more romantically inclined, fretting over the fate of her brother’s retainer Hyoma (Chiyonosuke Azuma) who, she thinks, has left his employ and become a drunkard. The drunken downward spiral of his life turns out to be a kind of undercover assignment, but provokes a little jealousy in Oshichi as she sees him “protecting” other women at a nearby restaurant, one of whom turns out to be Misuzu who holds a few more pieces of the puzzle. Vowing to save Misuzu and stop the conspiracy, Oshichi adopts a male persona complete with top knotted wig and takes on an entire boatload of sailors who stupidly tell her that they’re shipping out that very night. 

Oshichi rescues Misuzu and gets the money back, saving her father and “restoring” the status quo, but it’s difficult to see which side she should be on in this fight. As Gorohachi perhaps implies, it’s not exactly fair or responsible for the samurai class to be hoarding all these vast amounts of money, or for it to be necessary to spend the annual salaries of several ordinary people on an extravagant celebration for an actor’s promotion. We’re told that the rebels are “evil” and villainous, and they do indeed seem to be cruel and self-interested, willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to achieve their goal, but it’s difficult to argue with the desire to stand up to this inherently oppressive system in which samurai corruption is the expected norm. 

Insisting that “the law can be merciful”, Oshichi serves a kind of moral justice, rescuing the innocent Misuzu and saving her wrongfully abused father while unmasking samurai corruption, but she remains a loyal servant of the Shogunate and a part of the system into which she was born. Oshichi has been permitted escape from her own oppression thanks to her “compassionate” brother who has allowed her to live freely in the city rather than pressuring her to marry and conform to the feminine norm, but living outside it herself seemingly has no sympathy for those who wish to reform the system and seeks only to preserve it. Having successfully solved the mystery, she reassumes her femininity and retreats into the cheerful festival atmosphere arm in arm with a clean shaven Hyoma finally embracing her romantic dream in an Edo freed from immediate strife. 

Short clip (no subtitles)