Mikio Naruse — Director (69)

Movie

Wakare mo tanoshi (1947)
別れも愉し IMDb Douban
成濑巳喜男 actor: 木暮实千代 / 沼崎勋
other title: 分手快乐 / Even Parting Is Enjoyable …
スト解決後最初の東宝第一プロ作品で、四つの物語を別々のスタッフが製作した「四つの恋の物語」の第2話。 美津子は、二度目の旦那と別れて、ダンサーだった頃に知り合った有田と同棲していた。しかし、有田が絹子という新聞売りの娘と知り合って以来、自己を反省し真剣に働きたいと考えるようになったのを知った美津子は、わざと愛想づかしを言って自ら彼のもとを去って行く。

Movie

The Angry Street (1950)
怒りの街 IMDb TMDB Douban
other title: 愤怒之街 / 怒りの街 …
The Angry Street includes a great deal of location shooting in the rebuilt city, including downtown streets, residential neighborhoods, the campus of the University of Tokyo, and the high life of jazzy dance halls. Sudo (Hara Yasumi) and Mori (Uno Jukichi) are two university students who make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Over the course of the film, Sudo becomes involved with three different girls and is drawn into the gangster milieu, which he seems unable to resist even though he is responsible for his mother, grandmother, and sister, Masako (Wakayama Setsuko). In this world of bad boys and girls, Masako is the pillar of strength and moral virtue who finally enables Mori to straighten out.

Movie

A Fond Face from the Past (1941)
なつかしの顔 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Mikio Naruse actor: 馬場都留子 / Ranko Hanai …
other title: 怀念的容颜 / なつかしの顔 …
A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because it is also his most direct engagement with the culture of war. When a newsreel comes to Kameoka featuring a local man named Yoichi, it causes some excitement in the community and, of course, in Yoichi's own family. First of all his mother makes the newsreel (Nippon News, no. 14), which begins with the same marching music that opens his own film, followed by a curious baby judging context in Los Angeles featuring two hundred Japanese babies. Released in January 1941, almost a year before the pacific war begins, this “found footage” is indicative of Japanese imperialist ambitions beyond Asia long before Pearl Harbor.

Movie

Okuni and Gohei (1952)
お国と五平 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
成濑巳喜男 actor: 木暮实千代 / 大谷友右卫门 …
other title: 阿国与五平 / お国と五平 …
A high-born woman named Okuni travels around the country with Gohei, a samurai retainer who is in service to her. They are in search of Tomonojo, who has killed the man who was Okuni’s husband and Gohei’s master, and they cannot return to their lord’s home until they have fulfilled their duty of hunting down and killing Tomonojo.

Movie

White Beast (1950)
白い野獣 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Mikio Naruse actor: 山村聡 / 饭野公子 …
other title: 白色猛兽 / 白い野獣 …
The third film that Naruse made in 1950, White Beast (Shiroi yaji, 1950), was described by Kinema Junpo critic Tsumura Hideo three years later as "so indescribably miserable as to haunt me even today." Tsumura represents the bulk of Japanese critics of the time, who felt that Naruse experienced a terrible slump throughout the 1940s and this film seemed to be the "bottom of the ocean." The critical establishment was clearly not prepared to accept a woman's prison film featuring former prostitutes recovering from venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and estranged lovers. With its catfights, hysterical tantrums, film noir lighting, and dramatic music, White Beast is indicative of the new influences of the Hollywood psychological thriller on Naruse. Caged (John Cromwell, 1950) initiated a cycle of women's prison movies in the United States that may or may not have been shown in Japan, but the stylistics of White Beast draw on the same paranoid woman's films and film noir conventions that preceded the American cycle.

Movie

Shibaido (1944)
芝居道 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
成濑巳喜男 actor: 古川绿波 / 长谷川一夫 …
other title: 芝居道 / The Way of Drama …
The Way of Drama unfolds in the world of kabuki in Osaka, but also addresses the politics of popular culture and the rivalry between theatrical styles like those used by amateur actors to dramatise contemporary events.

Movie

Maihime (1951)
舞姫 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Mikio Naruse actor: 山村聡 / Mieko Takamine …
other title: 舞女 / 舞姫 …
The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family.

Movie

A Tale of Archery (1945)
三十三間堂通し矢物語 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
other title: 三十三间堂箭术物语 / 三十三間堂通し矢物語 …
Young, timid bowmaster Kazuma seeks to beat the archery record set by Hoshino Kanzaemon, a mysterious figure who, it is rumoured, drove the previous champion—Kazuma’s father—to suicide. Possessed of much raw talent, Kazuma is very much a coward, holing up in an inn and generally avoiding confrontation. Despite his best attempts to remain clandestine, the locals know of Kazuma’s purpose and an attempt is made on his life. He's saved by Karatsu Kanbei, a samurai who offers to help Kazuma hone his archery skills, though it becomes clear that this apparently selfless stranger has potentially shady ulterior motives.

Movie

Battle of Roses (1950)
薔薇合戦 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
成濑巳喜男 actor: 三宅邦子 / 若山节子 …
other title: 蔷薇合战 / 薔薇合戦 …
Following the death of Mr Masago, his wife Satomi loses the family's cosmetics company to Mr Mogy due to huge amount of withdrawal debt caused by her husband. Mogy blackmails Satomi's sister Hinako into marrying him, so he will not send Masago to jail, and Satomi wrongly understands that Hinako is dating Mogy.