PLOT: Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man who shows a low self esteem, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poetess. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and the development of a serious illness: a breast cancer, which leads her to lose her breasts. In the last stage of her life she meets a young journalist arrived from Tokyo, an admirer of her work, who wants to write a story on her life.Read More »
Rouven Linnarz wrote:
Although she would go on to make feature films as an actress, Kinuyo Tanaka’s last project as a director would be the 1963 jidaigeki “Love Under the Crucifix”, a work based on the novel “Ogin-sama” by Toko Kon. At the same time, given her development as a filmmaker, this is truly an interesting climax to a career which saw her progressing more and more, developing her skills, especially when it comes to cinematic storytelling. Additionally, the themes that defined her previous works such as “Love Letter” and “Forever a Woman” also found a fitting conclusion in a feature that, even though it was not set in the present as her other movies, it certainly made a very relevant point about gender roles within Japanese society as well as the conflict between duty and desire as expressed in the story of the main characters.Read More »
In the late 1950’s prostitution was banned in Japan and if a woman was found exercising this profession they were sent to a reformatory. This is a story of one of these brave women Kuniko who is released from the reformatory and tries to build a new life.Read More »
Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, Pu Wen, marries Ryuko the daughter of a long-established aristocratic family – all in the interest of the Japanese rulers, which legitimizes the relationship between Japan and its Chinese puppet state. To the surprise of all , a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops. It is put to the test when Japan loses the war, Manchukuo is dissolved and the imperial court must flee. The lovers now have to separate: Pu Zhe tries to escape to Japan with his brother, while Ryuko flees with her daughter Eisei over the country. A film on the relationship between Pujie (1907-94), brother of the “last emperor” Puyi and his second wife, Marquise Hiro Saga (1914-87).Read More »
Quote:
This is a rare chance to see a film by Kinuyo Tanaka as director. Tanaka was an actress known through her starring roles in many, many Japanese films in the pre-war and post-war golden ages – films like Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu (1952) – through to her tremendous and award winning performance in Kei Kumai’s Sandakan 8 (1974). Although not the first woman to direct a film in Japan Tanaka was able to produce a handful of films in the 50s that are very competently made and much better and more interesting than many in their treatment of women in society. Although it was said that her relationship with Mizoguchi was the reason she was able or allowed to direct it is clear that she had talent that was all her own and that she was able to work with the cream of Japan’s studio talent (the script writer is Keisuke Kinoshita). Koibumi was her first film as director.
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