Tag: Takashi Kanda

Cantankerous Edo (大江戸喧嘩纏, Kiyoshi Saeki, 1957)

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A noble-hearted samurai on the run falls for a fireman’s sister in Kiyoshi Saeki’s hugely enjoyable jidaigeki musical adventure Cantankerous Edo (大江戸喧嘩纏, Oedo Kenka Matoi). Another vehicle for Hibari Misora and samurai movie star Hashizo Okawa, Saeki’s wholesome drama finds its heroes not only standing up to the oppressions of a rigid class system but also taking on a bunch of entitled sumo wrestlers intent on throwing their weight around having apparently lost sight of the tenets of traditional sumo wrestling such as fighting for justice and having a kind heart. 

To begin at the beginning, however, young samurai Shinzaburo (Hashizo Okawa) is on the run believing that he has accidentally killed another man who attacked him in order to clear the path towards his fiancée, Otae (Hiroko Sakuramachi), whom he wasn’t going to marry anyway because he realised she was in love with someone else and wanted to help marry him instead. Having escaped to Edo, he takes refuge inside a parade of firemen lead by Tatsugoro (Ryutaro Otomo) and his feisty sister Oyuki (Hibari Misora) who decide to take him in after hearing his story. Adopting the simpler, common name of “Shinza” he begins life as a fireman and gradually falls for Oyuki but remains a wanted man constantly dodging the attentions of his uncle, the local inquisitor, and the magistrates. 

More a vehicle for Okawa than Misora who plays a relatively subdued role save for boldly stealing the standard and climbing a roof herself when the others are delayed, Cantankerous Edo takes aim not particularly at a corrupt social order but of the oppressive nature of class divisions as Shinza discovers a sense of freedom and possibility he was previously denied as a samurai while living as a common man. It’s this desire for personal autonomy and the freedom to follow one’s heart that led to his exile from his clan, unwilling to marry a woman he knew not only did not love him but in fact loved someone else and would have been forever miserable if forced to marry him out of duty alone. “The life of a samurai who has to be somebody or not to suit another’s convenience is utterly stupid” he bluntly tells his uncle and Otae’s father, “how you cling onto family status, heritage, and honour. All that fuss, I hate it.” he adds before turning to Otae and encouraging her too to stand up to her father and insist on marrying the man she loves rather than be traded to another. 

Meanwhile, the two women exchange some contradictory messages about the nature of class and womanhood, the samurai lady Otae confessing that she isn’t sure she’s strong enough to fight for love in the face of tradition and filial duty in contrast to Oyuki’s spirited defence of Shinza the fireman insisting that firemen don’t think about such trivial things as name or family status before throwing themselves into harm’s way for the public good. “All women are weak” Otae sighs, Oyuki replying that they need to be strong for the men they love, “that’s what it means to be a woman”. Love may be in this sense a force of liberation, destabilising the social order but also a means of improving it, yet it still reduces women to a supporting role ironically as perhaps the film does to Misora who in contrast to some of her feistier performances takes something of a back seat. 

Romance aside, the main drama revolves around a conflict between the local sumo wrestlers who have turned into thuggish louts under their boorish leader Yotsuguruma (Nakajiro Tomita), taking against the fireman and forever spoiling for a fight. The samurai proving unexpectedly understanding, the sumo wrestlers become the main source of oppression in usurping a class status they don’t really have. The noble Tatusgoro tries to stave off the fight insisting that they aren’t brawling yakuza but responsible firemen here to serve the public good and should save their energy for fighting fires rather than their obnoxious neighbours. Nevertheless the fight cannot be held off forever. Tatsugoro is forced to redefine the nature of “fire” after hearing a warning bell informing him one of his men is in grave danger unable to manage their anger anymore.  

Saeki’s jidaigeki musical has surprisingly good production values for a Toei programmer, making space for a few songs along the way celebrating the valour of the firemen while Oyuki meditates on her potentially impossible romance and the perils of love across the class divide. While the conclusion may end up ironically reinforcing the hierarchical society, it does however make the case for the right to romantic freedom along with the necessity of human compassion in the face of inconsiderate arrogance and intimidation.

Note: This film is sometimes titled “Fight Festival in Edo” but according to Eirin’s database, the official English-language title is “Cantankerous Edo”. Rather confusingly, a very similar film with a very similar title (大江戸喧嘩まつり) was produced in colour at Toei in 1961 and is known as “Fight Festival in Edo” in English. Meanwhile, Hibari Misora also starred in another colour film with a very similar storyline in 1958 (唄祭りかんざし纏) which is known as “Girl with the Fire Banner” in English but listed as “Festival of Song” on Eirin’s database.

Scandal (醜聞, Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

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“Freedom of the press or harassment?” The more things change, the more they stay the same. Akira Kurosawa’s attack on the declining moral standards of the post-war society as reflected in the duplicity of the gutter press has unexpected resonance in the present day in which the media is simultaneously unwilling to challenge authority and in thrall to the populist allure of celebrity gossip with sometimes tragic results. The aptly named Scandal (醜聞) is essentially a morality tale which draws additional power from its seasonal setting and embodies the soul of the contemporary society in a conflicted lawyer consumed by internal struggle against despair and hopelessness. 

The more literal scandal however revolves around a well known singer, Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko (Shirley) Yamaguchi), and a motorcycle-riding artist, Ichiro Aoe (Toshiro Mifune), who meet by chance while staying at the same remote mountain inn. Having ironically headed to the mountains to escape the various “annoying things” that plague her in the city, Miyako has been pursued by two muckrakers from the tabloid press who take umbrage at her refusal to see them. They are then fairly delighted when they manage to snap a picture of Ichiro and Miyako standing on her balcony looking out at the mountains like a young couple in love. They deliver the photo to their seedy boss, Hori (Eitaro Ozawa), who is over the moon with excitement at his new business prospects. Suddenly Ichiro and Miyako are on posters all around the city with headlines such as “Love on a Motorcycle” and “Miyako Saijo’s secret love – revealed!”. 

Though Ichiro is a semi-public figure himself having been featured in magazine spreads as an artist on the rise, he is not a worldly man and is shocked by the idea that the press can make something up and print it with no consequences. He feels he must resist not just on a personal level angry to have been misrepresented but for the post-war future to ensure that the press is held to account and that it does not misuse its power to breach the privacy of ordinary citizens. To his mind, they only get away with it because most people just ignore them and wait for the scandal to pass, a sentiment born out by Hori who dismisses a concerned underling with the reminder that they’ve never yet been sued so they need have no fear saying whatever they like whether it’s true or not. “The kind of snobs we target think the law is beneath them” he adds, suggesting that most people prefer to think of the gutter press as something they can safely ignore and that it’s only themselves that they show up in their torrid obsession with the lives of others. 

But Hori also ironically defends his right to press freedom and quickly hits back that he’s being oppressed by those who wish to silence his right to free speech even when what he’s saying isn’t true. Lawyer Hiruta (Takashi Shimura) who offers to represent Ichiro in his lawsuit quickly identifies Hori as a duplicitous conman but also allows himself to be manipulated accidentally accepting a bribe after being led to believe that Hori has a top legal expert on retainer and the case is hopeless unless Miyako, who has so far maintained a dignified silence, can be persuaded to join as co-plaintiff. Ichiro had decided to accept Hiruta’s offer of representation largely on meeting his teenage daughter, Masako (Yoko Katsuragi), who has been bedridden with TB for the last five years. Masako is a pure soul whose isolation from the contemporary society has allowed her to maintain her innocence and humanity but it’s also true that it’s the society that made her ill in the first place.

The morality play reaches a climax on Christmas Day as Ichiro delivers a tree on his motorbike while Miyako sings carols for a radiant Masako who is at least sitting up and looking much healthier than she’s ever been before. But the more Hiruta debases himself, caught between an accidental debt to Hori, his own lack of conviction, and the frustrated desire to do right, the sicker she gets as if poisoned by post-war duplicity. Even so, Ichiro continues to defend him insisting that Hiruta isn’t a bad person just a weak one and that in the end he won’t be able to go through with betraying him but will eventually come clean and tell the truth when it counts. Ichiro’s faith is as much in the institutions of the new democratic Japan as it is in Hiruta as he explains at the trial admitting that he may have been naive in placing too much trust in the legal system thinking that he couldn’t lose because he knows he’s in the right. As the opposition lawyer points out, that’s not a very good legal argument because his client thinks he’s in the right too only he doesn’t know that Hori is both a liar and an idiot who’s staked everything on the assumption that Hiruta won’t expose him for bribery, which would at least strongly imply he can’t back up his story, because it would mean destroying himself. 

In the end it’s Hiruta who puts himself on trial, baring his soul to the court which he acknowledges he has betrayed in his negligence and wilful obstruction of justice. It’s a victory for truth and decency and a turn away from the duplicitous, capitalistic mores of men like Hori who think they can do whatever they want and only laugh at those who value fairness and compassion. “In all my 50 years I’ve never seen a more confused age” Hiruta explains speaking of post-war chaos and the forced comprises of the intervening years of despair and desperation. As he coaxes the denizens of a small bar into an early rendition of Auld Lang Syne on Christmas Day, each vowing that this time next year things really will be better, many of them breakdown in frustrated longing drowning their sorrows as they continue to yearn for better times they do not really believe will come. But then like all the best Christmas films, this is also a redemption story of a man who decided that it wasn’t too late after all and that he might have to destroy himself in order make himself anew and be the man his daughter always knew he could be even if in the end he could not save her from the ravages of the post-war society.

Scandal screens at the BFI Southbank, London on 10th & 24th January 2023 as part of the Kurosawa season.

The Sand City in Manchuria (砂漠を渡る太陽, Kiyoshi Saeki, 1960)

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A pure hearted doctor stands strong against the forces of imperialism if somewhat ambivalently in Kiyoshi Saeki’s wartime drama The Sand City in Manchuria (砂漠を渡る太陽, Sabaku wo Wataru Taiyo). “Why isn’t there just one country? I don’t want a country” a young Chinese woman exclaims towards the film’s conclusion in what is intended as an anti-war statement but also invites the inference that the one country should be Japan and that China is wrong to resist the kind of “co-existence” that the idealistic hero is fond of preaching. 

Dr. Soda (Koji Tsuruta), known as Soh, has been in Manchuria for two years running a poor clinic in a trading outpost on a smuggling route through the desert. He came, he later tells another Japanese transplant, after being talked into it by a pastor who told him about US missionaries who endured hardship in the Gobi desert and lamented that no Japanese people had been willing to take on such “thankless” work in the midst of the imperial expansion. There is a kind of awkwardness in Soda’s positioning as the good Japanese doctor which perhaps reflects the view from 1960 in that he objects to the way the Japanese military operates in Manchuria and most particularly to Japanese exceptionalism which causes them to look down on the local Chinese community as lesser beings, but within that all he preaches is equality and co-existence which suggests that he sees nothing particularly wrong in Japan being in Manchuria in the first place while implying that the Chinese are expected to simply co-exist with an occupying force to which they have in any case been given no choice but to consent. 

Nevertheless, it’s clear that the Japanese are in this case the bad guys. Soda is at one point accosted by a drunken soldier who takes against his choice to adopt Chinese dress while rudely refusing to pay his rickshaw driver. The animosity of some in the town is well justified as we hear that their mother was murdered by a Japanese soldier, or that they were raped by Japanese troops and now have nothing but hate for them to they extent that they would withhold vital medical treatment from a child rather than consider allowing Soda to treat them. Soda’s main paying job is working at an opium clinic hinting at the various ways imperialist powers have used the opium trade to bolster their control over the local population, while it later becomes clear that one of the Chinese doctors has been in cahoots with a corrupt Japanese intelligence officer to, ironically, syphon off opium meant for medical uses and sell it to addicts in a truly diabolical business plan. 

Though Soda is well respected in the town because he offers free medical treatment to those who could never otherwise afford it, he is sometimes naive about their real living conditions. Outraged that a young woman has been sold into sexual slavery, he marches off to the red light district to buy her back but is confused on his return realising her family aren’t all that happy about it because they cannot afford to feed her and were depending on the money she would send them because the father has become addicted to opium and can no longer work. The girl, Hoa (Yoshiko Sakuma), becomes somewhat attached to Soda but he is largely uninterested in her because she is only 17, while her affection for him causes tension with the daughter of an exiled Russian professor which is only repaired once they all start working together for the common good after the town after it comes under threat from infectious disease. 

In an echo of our present times, it seems not much has changed in the last 80 years or so, the townspeople quickly turn on Soda once it become clear that he’s putting the town on lockdown to prevent the spread of infectious meningitis after a Russian soldier stumbles in and dies of it. The disease firstly exposes the essential racism even among those Japanese people who have lived in Manchuria longterm such as the mysterious Ishida (So Yamamura) who remarks that diseases like that only affect the Manchurians and they’ll be fine because they are “more hygienic”, while simultaneously painting the infection as a symptom of foreign corruption delivered by the Russian incursion. Soda visits a larger hospital to get the samples confirmed but is told that the disease has not been seen in Manchuria before and so they have no vaccine stocks leaving him dependent on the smuggling network to get the supplies he needs. As the town is a trading outpost whose entire economy is dependent on the business of travellers just passing through, the townspeople are obviously opposed to the idea of keeping them out fearing that they will soon starve going so far as to tear down Soda’s quarantine signs while throwing stones at his house. 

In another irony, it’s Ishida’s pistol that wields ultimate control immediately silencing the mayor’s objections in a rude reminder of the local hierarchy. Many of the townspeople including inn owner Huang (Yunosuke Ito) and Hoa’s sister Shari (Naoko Kubo) are involved with the resistance to which Soda seems to remain quite oblivious and in any case adopts something of a neutral position but gains a grudging respect from Huang thanks to his humanitarianism that eventually saves him from brutal bandit Riyan (a rare villain role for a young Ken Takakura). In any case, as the corrupt Japanese officials pull out to escape the imminent Russian incursion, Soda decides to stay in part to atone for the sins of the Japanese in an acceptance of his responsibility as a Japanese person if one who has not (directly) participated in the imperialist project even if he was in a sense still underpinning it. Essentially a repurposed ninkyo eiga starring Koji Tsuruta as a morally upright man surrounded by corruption but trying to do the right thing to protect those who cannot protect themselves, there is an undeniable awkwardness in the film’s imperialist ambivalence but also a well intentioned desire to look back at the wartime past with clearer eyes and a humanitarian spirit. 

The Fellows Who Ate the Elephant (象を喰つた連中, Kozaburo Yoshimura, 1947)

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The Japan of 1947 was one still very much caught up in post-war chaos. In the cities, most particularly, hunger was a major problem. The Fellows Who Ate the Elephant (象を喰つた連中, Zo wo Kutta Renchu) may have a title that strongly recalls the screwball comedies of the ’30s, but is less slapstick comedy than dark satire in its central premise that a bunch of idiot mad scientists might actually eat a deceased elephant in extreme dedication to “mottainai” waste not want not philosophy coupled with the justification that all is permissible in the name of science. 

The elephant is, apparently, the last in Japan and was the childhood friend of zookeeper Yamashita (Chishu Ryu) who brought him all the way over the mountains from Thailand after the war. “Shiro-chan” is very ill with some kind of elephant cold but for some reason the doctors the zoo uses aren’t vets specialising in large, exotic animals but virologists. While they stand around apparently mystified, Yamashita enquires after the professor he usually deals with but is told that, despite being over 60 years of age, he’s currently away on honeymoon after marrying a very young and extremely beautiful woman. Sadly, Shiro doesn’t make it. The professor is saddened to learn of the death from the paper and wonders if it might have been a virus similar to one which attacks hoofed animals like donkeys and horses but is not usually found in Japan (Shiro is Thai after all). 

This is relevant because the disease is fatal and contagious but does not usually pass to humans and is only a risk if you come into direct contact with it, like say if you eat meat from an infected animal. No one would eat an elephant though so there’s nothing to worry about. Enter extremely unpleasant mad scientist Wada (Shinichi Himori) who decides that science dictates they must find out if it’s sanitary to eat elephant meat. Though Wada ropes in fellow scientist Baba (Yasumi Hara) with his scientific justifications, he tricks the other two into eating some without telling them what it is. Unforgivably, he even gives some to Yamashita and seems to get a kick out of feeding him his own childhood friend when Yamashita had only come on instruction from his boss to apologise for being over emotional the day before. Yamashita leaves feeling sick after Wada tells him what he was eating for additional effect, but his wife (Chiyoko Fumiya) later remembers a story he told her about fellow elephant drivers in Thailand who ate some elephant meat from an infected animal and were dead within 30 hours. 

After hearing Yamashita’s concerns, the scientists begin investigating and indeed find cases of people dying after eating contaminated meat. The only cure is the serum they use to treat the horse infection the professor mentioned, but it seems nowhere has any in stock (the disease is rare in Japan after all). The idiot scientists come to the conclusion they will die in exactly 30 hours’ time and decide to put their affairs in order rather than consult an actual doctor who might be able to help them. This mostly involves trying to explain their foolishness to their wives. Watanabe (Takashi Kanda) is a father of three with another child on the way. He regrets that he hasn’t been present enough in his family life and has failed to adequately provide for his wife who he will shortly be leaving to raise four children alone. Nomura (Toru Abe) meanwhile is an uxorious newlywed constantly worried that his wife (Kyoko Asagiri), who already dislikes Wada for being a bad influence on her husband, will not be able to bear the anxiety of knowing he may soon die. Baba who has only his parents retreats back to his old country home to apologise for not being a better son. 

Wada, meanwhile, moans about everyone else’s understandable desires to comfort their wives and families. He criticises Yamashita for trying to excuse himself because he’d rather go home and have dinner with his wife, while mocking Nomura for being a henpecked husband. This might partly be because he has no wife or family of his own and is currently chasing after Tomie (Akemi Sora), a maid at his boarding house, who seems pretty indifferent or even hostile to his attentions, joking that she’d celebrate on hearing of his demise. She eventually agrees to go out with him, but only if he really dies. Other than the wives, no-one quite believes the guys’ bizarre story. Baba’s parents even try to stop him going back to Tokyo when a potential cure is located in case he goes “even more mad”. 

In these trying times, the idea that someone might try to eat a dead elephant is perhaps not quite as ridiculous as it might first seem. The act of trying it, however, also plays into the constant critiques of bad or irresponsible science which are a mainstay of films in the immediate post-war era. Wada knows that he can and so he doesn’t bother to think about if he should, spinning tales of Jenner and Koch as if they’re about to make some grand lifesaving discovery. His brush with death does at least begin to humble him as he finally accepts responsibility for the unexpected consequences of his cruel prank, realising that as a man with no wife or family it should perhaps be him if anyone is going to have to make a sacrifice. Finally someone manages to get through to the professor on the phone who tells them they’re all very stupid and haven’t thought of something perfectly obvious that makes all their panicking completely pointless, but at least the surreal 30-hour near death experience has brought out a warmer side of Wada and given a few irresponsible scientists a quick lesson in social responsibility. 

Mysteries of Edo (ふり袖捕物帖　若衆変化, Shoji Matsumura, 1956)

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The voice of the post-war era, Hibari Misora was a major marquee star but in contrast to expectation, appears to have been fully in command of her contradictory brand, selling an image of herself not as docile and innocent in the manner of many a manufactured idol but feisty and true, refusing to backdown in the face of injustice. In her contemporary movies, she stood up to gangsters and corrupt corporations alike with salt of the earth charm, while her period roles saw her do much the same only against the inherently corrupt samurai order. An early outing for Toei, Mysteries of Edo (ふり袖捕物帖　若衆変化, Furisode Torimonocho: Wakashu Henge) sees her star in the first of a series of films as a princess in hiding turned feminist detective, investigating series of abductions in the rapidly changing bakumatsu society. 

A “newspaper” seller in the street informs us that 14 girls have recently gone missing in this area of town, and no one’s doing much about it. A dance teacher escorts her pupils home to be on the safe side while her apprentice, Oshichi (Hibari Misori), stays behind to teach cowardly samurai Kawashima (Hashizo Okawa) some moves. Local bobby Gorohachi (Shunji Sakai), himself a dance enthusiast, arrives to get some guidance from Oshichi but their lesson is interrupted by the news that the dance mistress and her daughter have become the latest two abduction victims. Oshichi springs into action but quickly falls under suspicion from a rival policeman, Gonroku (Haruhisa Kawada), who questions her background. All too soon, the body of a young woman is discovered at the local shrine and believed to be connected to the abduction cases. Gonroku accepts a bribe from a samurai to get rid of the body as quickly as possible, but Oshichi immediately notices the bruises on the woman’s neck and concludes it’s a murder. She and Gorohachi trace the samurai back to the red light district and discover some shady goings on in a “back house” behind a brothel belonging to a prominent merchant. 

During this era, Japan was still in its isolationist period during which consorting with foreigners was forbidden outside of a few explicitly designated trading spots. Oshichi figures out that the merchant, Nagasaki (Ryosuke Kagawa), is involved with smuggling and uses his second house as a place to entertain foreigners in collusion with local politicians. When he ran out of courtesans from the brothel next door, he started simply abducting random women off the street to entertain his guests with more authentic charms. Those who don’t comply are threatened with being sold off on slave ships, itself another evil of the age. 

Of course, a lowly dance teacher and a bumbling policeman aren’t much of a match for entrenched samurai corruption, but Oshichi has a trump card – she’s secretly a princess in hiding. Bored with the life of an upperclass noblewoman, she ran away from her brother’s home to live an independent life in Edo but can still rely on her class background when necessary. Stealing a pistol and a letter box, she rebrands herself as a man and gets a job in the ministry to try and spy on the corrupt lords while hoping to save her boss, keeping up the ruse well enough but eventually unmasked as a girl. 

As in many of her films, Misora plays on gender ambiguity. Rejecting the cosseted life of a lady, she takes to the streets and then takes charge. She’s technically Gorohachi’s subordinate, but in reality he follows her lead, and she gives as good as she gets in the frequent fight sequences. In the end, however, she’s “rescued” by a masked samurai dressed in white with whom she becomes instantly smitten. She dreams of meeting him in a deserted field where he mildly berates her for her lack of femininity, insisting that he liked “the Oshichi from before”, meanwhile she conjures up the figure of Kawashima who manfully wades in to save her. Previously, in refusing to help, Kawashima had told her that “a woman should know her place and act like a woman”. Oshichi tells him perhaps he should act like a man, practice kendo or something else more manly rather than prancing about learning to dance. His words have perhaps cut her because he tells her the same thing in her dream, insisting that he “could fall for the womanly Oshichi”.

Oshichi tries on womanliness for size, but it only seems to confuse the “real” Kawashima who describes her attempt at genial femininity as “creepy”. She quickly goes back to holding her own, pushing forward where the men hold back perhaps bashful in love but never in justice. Even if it’s true that the dashing samurai arrives to save the day, Oshichi is no damsel in distress watching passively from the sidelines but an active participant threatening bad guys with a gun cunningly smuggled in while she distracted them with a song, and grabbing a sword off the wall to wade into the fray. Rewarded for her good work and asked what she’d like in return, Oshichi chooses her freedom, intending to stay in the town a little longer, solving crimes in old Edo and ensuring that no one, even those who think they have a right to be, is truly above the law.

Street of Violence: The Pen Never Lies (ペン偽らず　暴力の街, Satsuo Yamamoto, 1950)

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vlcsnap-2020-01-16-00h05m26s354The immediate post-war era was one marked by fear and anxiety. The world had turned upside down, food was scarce, and desperation had provoked a widespread moral decline which rendered compassion a luxury many thought they could ill afford. Yet, in hitting rock bottom there was also the opportunity to rebuild the world better than it had been before. Street of Violence: The Pen Never Lies (ペン偽らず　暴力の街, Pen Itsuwarazu Boryoku no Machi), is one of many pro-democracy films arriving in the wake of Japan’s new constitution and makes an unlikely hero of the local newspaperman as the sole means of speaking truth to power in the fierce belief that the people have a right to know.

Tojo, a small town Northwest of Tokyo, was once the centre of the silk trade but as the industry declined, it gradually became home to gangs and a hub for wartime black market shenanigans. The sad truth is that the growing nouveau riche middle-classes profiting from post-war shadiness have more or less got the town sewn up. The corrupt police force is in cahoots with the gangsters who call themselves a “police support organisation” and make a point of wining and dining the local police chief, while also making sure the local paper is firmly in their pocket. The trouble starts when rookie reporter Kita (Yasumi Hara) is invited to a policeman’s ball and figures out the whole thing is sponsored by the silk traders’ union, which he thinks is not quite right. He takes what he’s learned back to his editor and is warned off the story but publishes something anyway, quickly becoming a target for prominent “politician” Onishi (Masao Mishima).

Street of Violence opens with onscreen text taken from the press code which emphasises that mass media has a duty to preserve the truth. Kita’s paper had been in league with the police and the gangsters enabling the atmosphere of casual violence which is gradually consuming the town. Kita, a new recruit, is not yet inured to the way things are and immediately thinks his duty is to blow a whistle, most obviously on the corrupt police force and judiciary. He is only allowed to do so because the previous editor stepped down and a similarly idealistic older gentleman (Takashi Shimura) from out of town has taken over. He decides to fight back, standing up to the crypto-fascist goons by continuing to publish the truth about the links between the police, black market silk traders, gangsters, and the rest of the local press who eventually gain the courage to join him.

Onishi continues to masquerade as a “legitimate businessman” and “respectable politician” claiming that he’s “striving for democracy” to help the “downtrodden”, but is also responsible for directly targeting Kita’s mother and sister in an attempt to intimidate him. The editor assigns another reporter, Kawasaki (Ryo Ikebe), to keep Kita safe and starts trying to find locals who will consent to be interviewed about gang intimidation while Kita’s friends from the Youth Association generate a kind of resistance movement holding protests and handing out flyers condemning the atmosphere of violence which has ordinary citizens turning off their lights and avoiding going out after dark to protect themselves from thuggery.

The silent cause of all this strife is of course post-war privation which has made the blackmarket the only means of survival for those otherwise starving but has also given free rein to selfish immorality. The Onishis of the world, the spineless police chief, and the cynical local press, have all abnegated their human responsibilities in wilfully taking advantage of a bad situation to further their own cause. When the press chooses not to turn a blind eye to entrenched corruption, it raises a flag that ordinary people can follow. Too intimidated to speak out, the townspeople had been living in fear but post-war youth has the courage to say no and demand a better future. A mass rally crying out “democracy” and insisting on an end to the cronyism and the corrupt systems of pre-war feudalism produces a people power revolution that can’t be ignored, forcing Onishi into submission, and a clean out of corrupt law enforcement. But, the earnest voice over reminds us, the victory is only partial – violence still exists and will rise again when it thinks no one’s looking. The press, most of all, cannot afford to look away if “democracy” is to be maintained.

Case of the Disjointed Murder (不連続殺人事件, Chusei Sone, 1977)

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Case of the disjointed murders posterJapanese cinema of the 1970s fell hard for the prestige murder mystery. Following the success of The Inugami Family, an early and unexpected hit thanks to Kadokawa’s “innovative” marketing strategy, multi-cast detective dramas dominated the box office for the rest of the decade. Meanwhile, ATG had been known for serious and high-minded avant-garde cinema throughout the 1960s but its brand of left-leaning, politically conscious, arthouse-fare was tantamount to box office poison in the increasingly consumerist post-Asama-Sanso world. ATG’s Kindaichi-centric Death at an Old Mansion, updated to the present day, pre-dated Ichikawa’s series for Toho by a whole year and perhaps signalled their resignation to shifting into the mainstream. By 1977, that transition was perhaps complete with former Nikkatsu Roman Porno director Chusei Sone’s adaptation of a classic serial penned by Ango Sakaguchi, an author of the “Buraiha“ school well known for chronicling post-war aimlessness.

Set in the summer of 1947, Case of the Disjointed Murder (不連続殺人事件, Furenzoku Satsujin Jiken, AKA Unrelated Murder Cases) is a classic country house mystery in which a series of high profile writers are invited to a mansion owned by a wealthy family, the Utagawas. Only, as it turns out, many of the letters of invitation are forgeries or have been doctored so that several unexpected guests have arrived including dissolute artist Doi (Yuya Uchida) whose presence is particularly awkward because he is the former husband of the host Kazuma’s (Tetsuro Sagawa) new wife Ayaka (Junko Natsu). Soon enough, one of the guests is murdered, and then another, and still more, seemingly for no real reason. Amateur detective Kose (Kazuya Kosaka), one of the “unexpected” guests, tries to piece the crime together to prevent its expansion but finds himself outflanked by a lack of material evidence.

Sakaguchi’s original tale ran as a newspaper serial which promised a cash prize for anyone clever enough to identify the murderer(s) before the truth was revealed as it eventually is in true country house mystery fashion with the detective explaining everything in a lengthy monologue while all the interested parties sit around a dinner table. The gamified nature of the serial is perhaps the reason for the large cast of characters comprising of Utagawa family members, the literary house guests, and staff all of whom become mixed up in the ongoing crime drama which Kose comes increasingly to believe is engineered rather than random as it might originally seem.

The “supposed” random chaos of the the “unconnected” murders is a key part of Sakaguchi’s interrogation of post-war anxiety. For a time it seems as if these mostly quite unpleasant people have taken the opportunity of being trapped within a claustrophobic environment to air out their own grievances with each other in an atmosphere already tainted with violence and resentment. Meanwhile, the moral corruption of the Utagawa household continues to come back to haunt them in the sexual transgressions of the late grandfather who apparently fathered several illegitimate children in addition to those from multiple marriages. The half-siblings bring additional strife into the Utagawa home in Kazuma’s incestuous desire for his half-sister Kayoko (Hitomi Fukuhara) who returns his affections and even hopes to marry her brother, while he has also transgressed by “buying” Ayaka from her venal first husband Doi.

As in most Japanese mysteries, however, the motives for murder turn out to be banal – simply monetary greed and seemingly nothing more even if backed up by a peculiar kind of romanticism. Such unbound desire for riches is perhaps another symptom of the precariousness of the post-war world in which individual survival is all in a chaotic environment where financial security is more or less impossible for those not already born into wealth. Kose begins to solve the crimes through the “psychological traces” the killer(s) leave behind, the various ways in which “scenes” are calculated and contrived but fail to entirely mask the truth which lies behind them.

Which is to say that the mechanics behind the killings ultimately become secondary to their psychological import in which Kose analyses superficial relationships to uncover the depths which underpin them and their implications for a conspiracy of crime. This persistent amorality in which human relationships and connections are subverted for personal gain is yet another example of post-war inhumanity in which the corruption of the war has destroyed the “innocence” of pre-modern Japan and provoked nothing more than a moral decline born of a confused anxiety and a generation struggling to adjust itself to a new reality.

Death at an Old Mansion aside, the ‘70s mystery boom had a peculiar obsession with post-war crime in the comparative comfort of the economic miracle. 30 years on, society was perhaps ready to ask more questions about an intensely traumatic moment in time but equally keen to ask what they might say about another anxious moment of social change only opposite in nature. No longer quite so burdened by post-war regret or confusion, some began to wonder if consumerism was as dangerous as poverty for the health of the national soul, but nevertheless seem content to bask in the essential cosiness of a country house mystery in which the detective will always return at the end to offer a full and frank explanation to a roomful of compromised suspects. If only real life were so easy to explain.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Feisty Edo Girl Nakanori-san (ひばり民謡の旅シリーズ べらんめえ中乗りさん, Masamitsu Igayama, 1961)

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Nakanori-san posterThe voice of the post-war era, Hibari Misora also had a long and phenomenally popular run as a tentpole movie star which began at the very beginning of her career and eventually totalled 166 films. Working mostly (though not exclusively) at Toei, she starred in a series of contemporary and period comedies all of which afforded her at least a small opportunity to showcase her musical talents. Directed by Masamitsu Igayama, Feisty Edo Girl Nakanori-san (ひばり民謡の旅シリーズ べらんめえ中乗りさん, Hibari Minyo no Tabi: Beranme Nakanori-san, AKA Travelsongs: Sharp-Tongued Acquaintance) once again stars Hibari Misora as a strong-willed, independent post-war woman who stands up to corruption and looks after the little guy while falling in love with regular co-star Ken Takakura. 

Nobuko (Hibari Misora) is the daughter of a formerly successful lumber merchant whose business is being threatened by an unscrupulous competitor. With her father ill in bed, Nobuko has taken over the family firm but is dismayed to find that a contract she assumed signed has been reneged on by a corrupt underling at a construction company who has been bribed by the thuggish Tajikyo (Takashi Kanda). Unlike Nobuko’s father Sado (Isao Yamagata), Tajikyo is unafraid to embrace the new, completely amoral business landscape of the post-war world and will do whatever it takes to become top dog in the small lumber-centric world of Kibo.

Tajikyo has teamed up with the similarly minded, though nowhere near as unscrupulous, Oka (Yoshi Kato) whose son Kenichi (Ken Takakura) has recently returned from America. Kenichi, having come back to Japan with with clear ideas about the importance of fair practice in business, is not happy with his father’s capitulation to Tajikyo’s bullying. Of course, it also helps that he had a charming meet cute with the spiky Nobuko and became instantly smitten so he is unlikely to be in favour of anything which damages her father’s business even if they are technically competitors.

As in the majority of her films, Misora plays the “feisty” girl of the title, a no nonsense sort of woman thoroughly fed up with the misogynistic micro aggressions she often encounters when trying to participate fully in the running of her family business. Though her father seems happy enough, even if casually reminding her that aspects of the job are more difficult for women – particularly the ones which involve literal heavy lifting and being alone with a large number of men in the middle of a forest, he too remarks on her seeming masculinity in joking that her mother made a mistake in giving birth to her as a girl. Likewise, Tajikyo’s ridiculous plan to have Nobuko marry his idiot son is laughed off not only because Tajikyo is their enemy, but because most people seem to think that Nobuko’s feistiness makes her unsuitable for marriage – something she later puts to Kenichi as their courtship begins to become more serious. Kenichi, of course, is attracted to her precisely because of these qualities even if she eventually stops to wonder if she might need to become more “feminine” in order to become his wife.

To this extent, Feisty Edo Girl is the story of its heroine’s gradual softening as she finally writes home to her father that she is happy to have been born a girl while fantasising about weddings and dreaming of Kenichi’s handsome face. Meanwhile, she also attracts the attentions of an improbable motorcycle champion who just happens to also be the son of a logging family and therefore also able to help in the grand finale even if he never becomes a credible love rival despite Nobuko’s frequent admiration for his fiery, rebellious character which more than matches her own.

Nevertheless, the central concern (aside from the romance) is a preoccupation with corruption in the wartime generation. Where Nobuko’s father Sado is “old fashioned” in that he wants to do business legitimately while keeping local traditions alive, the Tajikyos of the world are content to wield his scruples against him, destroying his business through underhanded methods running from staff poaching to bribery and violence. Kenichi’s father has gone along with Tajikoyo’s plans out of greed and weakness, irritated by his son’s moral purity on one level but also mildly horrified by what he might have gotten himself into by not standing up to Tajikyo in the beginning.

As expected, Nobuko and Kenichi eventually triumph through nothing more than a fierce determination to treat others with respect. Working together cheerfully achieves results, while the corrupt forces of Tajikyo eventually find themselves blocked by those who either cannot be bought or find the strength to refuse to be. Nobuko’s big job is finding prime lumber to be used to build a traditional pagoda in America as part of a cultural celebration. She wants to do her best not only because she takes pride in her work but because she knows this project will represent Japan overseas. Tajikyo, however, would cut corners, believing that the Americans wouldn’t notice even if he sent them rotten logs riddled with woodworm as long as the paperwork tallies. Filled with music and song, Nakanori-san is an action packed outing for Misora in which she once again succeeds in setting the world to rights while falling in love with a likeminded soul as they prepare to sail off into kinder post-war future.

Some of Hibari’s songs from the film (no subtitles):

Deep River Melody (風流深川唄, So Yamamura, 1960)

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Deep River Melody poster 2An actor with a long and distinguished career, So Yamamura first stepped behind the camera in 1953 with an adaptation of the famous proletarian novel by Takeji Kobayashi, The Crab Cannery Ship (later adapted by Sabu in 2009), and eventually completed six features. Deep River Melody (風流深川唄, Furyu Fukagawa Uta), released in 1960 and adapted from a novel by Matsutaro Kawaguchi, was last among them and starred post-war singing sensation Hibari Misora in the leading role. Hibari Misora was a frequent presence at Toei through the ‘50s and ‘60s, appearing in a series of musical dramas both period and contemporary but Deep River Melody is among the small number of purely dramatic pieces in which she starred which do not feature any musical numbers even over the opening and closing.

Set in the early years of militarism, the story revolves around Setsu (Hibari Misora) – the daughter of a restaurant owner, and her head chef, Cho (Koji Tsuruta). Having grown up together, Setsu and Cho have quietly fallen in love but these are times in which it is difficult to state one’s feelings plainly. Luckily, Setsu’s father, Isaburo (Kan Ishii), and his warm hearted mistress (Isuzu Yamada), have noticed the growing affection between the pair and are only too happy for them. What could be better after all than the head chef marrying into the family? Despite some qualms on Cho’s side in breaking a class ceiling taboo, the matter appears to be settled and both he and Setsu are blissfully happy.

However, tragedy soon strikes. Isaburo unwisely agreed to become the guarantor of a loan taken out by Shunsuke Ohta (So Yamamura) – the leader of the communist party in Japan (not an easy thing to be amid the rising tides of militarism). He, of course, defaults on the loan putting the restaurant at risk. The other relatives, learning of the prospective marriage between Setsu and Cho are extremely unhappy, viewing it as improper for mere servant to inherit the restaurant. Isaburo stands firm, but matters are pushed to crisis point by grumpy uncle Koshikawa who is determined to act as a go-between for the wealthy son of a rival restaurant who has long had designs on Setsu.

Though this is definitively a pre-war story, many of the problems faced by Setsu and Cho are the same as those in Hibari Misora’s contemporary movies in that she, in particular, finds herself trapped by a series of outdated social codes in which her extended family expect her to consent to marry a man she does even like for money in order to save their “good” name. They believe Isaburo is a feckless fool who has lost the restaurant through a needless gesture of loyalty towards a man who had been good to him in the past and was now in trouble. Isaburo places human relationships above money and politics, remaining uninterested in the relatives’ insistence on class hierarchies and preservation of the family’s good standing. Though he may, to a degree at least, be sympathetic towards Ohta’s political intentions, he acts as guarantor out of respect and gratitude rather than deep belief in a cause.

Nevertheless, the barriers between Cho and Setsu are less physical than they are psychological. Cho, raised as a servant, feels himself inferior and has difficulty accepting Isaburo’s talk of marriage owing to their differing social status. Isaburo, somewhat embarrassed, has not yet spoken with Setsu, but then knows his daughter well and is right in assuming the pair will eventually sort things out on their own if given a gentle push. When the relationship is tested by the restaurant’s failure, Isaburo and Setsu stand firm. No one entered this relationship for the wrong reasons – Cho loves the restaurant and everyone who works in it, but he fell in love with Setsu independently and would marry her for nothing. He remains uncertain, however, if his devotion is selfish and if the best way to love her is to leave her and allow her to save her familial legacy by marrying a man with money.

Like many post-war films, Deep River Melody is essentially about learning to let go of outdated ideas and that the maintenance of tradition is less important than individual happiness. Setsu and her father are ready to let go rather than commit themselves to a course of lifelong unhappiness solely to please their snooty relatives. Cho, however, struggles to free himself of a feeling of social inferiority. His own family tell him that his desire to marry Setsu is not only wrong but dangerous, that they have built a life for themselves though being loyal servants and that crossing the class divide risks all of their futures. Conflicted, Cho remains unwilling to fight for his love because he does not believe he can win and not only that, he feels it would be inappropriate to even try. If the pair are to find true happiness, they will have to find the courage to move on from the past and build their own future free of feudal ideas but to do so will require both sacrifice and support in the belief that a better life is possible.

A Woman in the Typhoon Area (颱風圏の女, Hideo Oba, 1948)

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vlcsnap-2017-12-14-23h50m20s302Setsuko Hara acquired the nickname “the eternal virgin” from her fans inspired by the genial ingenue roles she was most associated with especially in her long career with Yasujiro Ozu in which she often played a reluctant daughter finally getting married (though only at the end of the picture). The nickname took on something of an ironic quality after her abrupt retirement from the acting world in which, rather than getting married, she remained single and locked herself away in her quaint little house in Kamakura, refusing all subsequent requests relating to showbiz. Woman in the Typhoon Area (颱風圏の女, Taifuken no Onna) is a rare entry in her filmography in which she plays completely against type (and does so brilliantly) as a damaged, brassy, and sensual woman caught up in a storm of her own as the sole female between a gang of vicious smugglers and a nerdy group of weather scientists marooned on an island by a typhoon.

As the film opens, the smugglers have been spotted by the coastguard and are engaged in a lengthy firefight trying to escape. Eventually they manage to evade government forces, but they’re way off course and running out of fuel while one of their number is also badly injured. Luckily they eventually run into an island which is home to a Japanese weather station. Unfortunately, the weather station has received a telegram from the coastguard and works out who the smugglers are. There isn’t enough fuel or food for the smugglers to steal and escape, but even if there were the approaching typhoon means it would be unwise to try.

The set-up is uncannily close to that of John Huston’s Key Largo, released the same year, though the tiny band of smugglers is nowhere near as intimidating as Edward G. Robinson’s band of thugs, nor are they particularly emblematic of a persistent lingering threat of fascism in the rise of bullies making their way through fear. What the smugglers are is mildly pathetic and intensely self interested. The weather station staff, government officials, are the good guys but they’re also easily cowed by three men (and a sympathetic/indifferent woman) with a single gun. The major conflict is over control of the radio which the smugglers have temporarily broken in fear of someone calling the coastguard. The weathermen want to repair it because it’s imperative they let the surrounding area know that a dangerous typhoon is on the way.

Like many films of the immediate post-war era, the central theme is one of the common good vs selfish interest. The radio operator, Amano (Jun Usami), is determined to act for “the common good” and is confident that he is the sort of person who will do the “right” thing at the right time. The smugglers don’t particularly care if a lot of people end up dying because they weren’t warned about the storm as long as they don’t get caught by the coast guard. For Kijima (So Yamamura), the boss of the smugglers, all that matters is strength – a strong man will never kneel but Amano would kneel if it meant he could get up later and do the right the thing even if it then costs him his life.

Where gangster narratives are often about surrogate families, the band of smugglers actively rejects familial bonds and only maintains cohesion through shared suspicion. Kuriko (Setsuko Hara) is Kijima’s girl, but Kataoka (Isao Yamaguchi) continually goes behind his boss’ back to seduce her finally even attempting rape. Though second mate Yoshii (Eijiro Tono) may seem more loyal, he too holds little love for his boss and will betray him if he thinks Kijima no longer strong enough to rule. Trapped within the claustrophobic environment of the weather station, the gang destroys itself in petty rivalries and long standing suspicions. Kijima was right when he said you couldn’t trust anyone on a ship, but he can’t trust his guys on land either.

The war is an obvious and recurrent theme but Kuriko’s troubles were only exacerbated rather than caused by it. An abandoned child, she recounts eating cold rice with strangers at 11 and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what she means when she says she remembers the name of her first man but not his face. Kuriko is a good girl turned bad by persistent social indifference and subsequent trauma experienced as a nurse in frontline field hospitals. She’s distant and embittered, living as a man on ship, dressing in slacks and shirts and chain smoking her life away. Trapped in the station and exposed to the “goodness” of Amano she starts dressing in more feminine fashions and reconsidering her gangster lifestyle. Though she starts to change, helps the weather station to save the locals, it’s clear that it’s already too late for her to save herself other than through a final act of sacrifice in service of a new ideal and an old love.

Only 70 minutes long Woman in the Typhoon Area is a taught, tense character piece which doesn’t quite manage to make the most of its intensely claustrophobic settings but still manages to reinforce its central message of selfishness being bad and altruism good. Hara is a revelation in such an unusual role, stealing each and every scene in steely uncertainty, giving the impression of a woman whose ongoing fall is as much a willing act of self harm as it is a natural consequence of her impossible circumstances.