Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Read More »
Tag Archives: Isuzu Yamada
Chutaro of Banba AKA Banba no Chûtarô (1955) Nobuo Nakagawa, Tomisaburô Wakayama, Isuzu Yamada, Sanae Mitsuoka
Based on the play ”Mabuta no Haha” by famed author Hasegawa Shin, this is the first major Read More »
Three Loves AKA Mittsu no ai (1954) Masaki Kobayashi, Isuzu Yamada, Kô Mishima, Yûnosuke Itô
In a mountain village, Heita, a translator’s son, is a gifted boy but is shunned by the villagers. Read More »
Five Men of Edo AKA Oedo go-nin Otoko (1951) Daisuke Itô, Tsumasaburô Bandô, Utaemon Ichikawa, Isuzu Yamada
During the 17th Century bands of hatamoto, samurai vassals of the Tokugawa shogunate Read More »
The Downfall of Osen (1935) Kenji Mizoguchi, Isuzu Yamada, Daijirô Natsukawa, Mitsusaburô Ramon
In Tokyo, Osen is the servant girl of an unscrupulous antiques dealer, Kumazawa, who takes in the penniless Sokichi Hata. Read More »
The Lower Depths (1957) Akira Kurosawa, Toshirô Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Kyôko Kagawa, Drama
In medieval Japan, aging Rokubei, his younger wife of four years Osugi and her uncle run a tenement complex at the bottom of a cliff Read More »
Yoru no nagare / Evening Stream (1960) Yûzô Kawashima, Mikio Naruse, Yôko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Akira Takarada, Drama
A woman and her daughter are in love with the same man, a chef at the restaurant that the mother manages. Read More »
Shukuzu (1953) Kaneto Shindô, Nobuko Otowa, Sumiko Hidaka, Isuzu Yamada, Drama
Ginko, the daughter of a poor shoemaker Ginzo, a child was sold to a geisha. From a student she became a real geisha and made her debut under the name of “Peony”. Read More »
Osaka Elegy / Naniwa erejî (1936) Kenji Mizoguchi, Isuzu Yamada, Seiichi Takegawa, Chiyoko Ôkura, Drama
Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss, Mr. Asai, so she can pay her father’s debt, and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement. Read More »
Neko to shozo to futari no onna / Shozo, a Cat and Two Women (1956) Shirô Toyoda, Hisaya Morishige, Isuzu Yamada, Kyôko Kagawa, Comedy, Drama, Family
A timid man who has spent much of his life attempting without success to get out from under the domination of his mother, finds that marriage is no answer. Read More »
Maria no Oyuki / Oyuki, the Virgin (1935) Kenji Mizoguchi
Oyuki, the Virgin is based on Kawaguchi Matsutaro’s adaptation of Maupassant’s “Boule de Suif” (“Lump of Fat,” also the inspiration for Ford’s Stagecoach). To this story Mizoguchi added some of his own elements. Maupassant’s original work, set during the Franco-Prussian War, is the story of a group of people who try to flee the battleground in a horsedrawn carriage. The bourgeois use the expression “lump of fat” to refer sarcastically to the prostitute who is riding along with them. When they are caught by the enemy, they offer to send her to the commander as a human sacrifice. This done, when they leave the battlefield the next day, all they do is censure her and call her vulgar.
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