Tribute to Kenji Mizoguchi 2017 / Zangiku monogatari / Japan 1939
Kikunosuke is expelled from the Onoe family of kabuki stars and only the maid Otoku supports him while he joins a traveling theatre group. But by the time he’s ready to return to Osaka, she has sacrificed her own health… Based on fact, the story is a sublime meditation on artistry and the space between performance and life.
Side-stepping the military government’s demands for patriotic, morale-boosting subjects, Mizoguchi opted for a story about a kabuki theatre actor in the Meiji era. Kikunosuke is expelled from the Onoe family of kabuki stars because of his selfish and arrogant behaviour, and only the maid Otoku has the courage to tell him to his face that his performances are mediocre. Persuading him to work hard on his craft, she supports him while he joins a traveling theatre group. But by the time he’s ready to return to Osaka, she has sacrificed her own health … Based on fact, the story had already been adapted as a stage melodrama but Mizoguchi and Yoda turned it into a sublime meditation on artistry and the space between performance and life. This film marked the highest point of Mizoguchi’s aesthetic experiments with long takes and sequence shots and is one of his greatest.
Tony Rayns
142 min / Black & white, DCP
Director Kenji Mizoguchi
/ Screenplay Yoshikata Yoda podle stejnojmenného příběhu / based on the story of the same name by Shofu Muramatsu
/ Dir. of Photography Shigeto Miki, Yozo Fuji
/ Music Shiro Fukai
/ Editor Koshi Kawahigashi
/ Art Director Hiroshi Mizutani
/ Producer Shintaro Shirai
/ Production Shochiku, Kyoto
/ Cast Shotaro Hanayagi, Kakuko Mori, Kokichi Takata, Yoko Umemura
/ Sales Shochiku Co., Ltd.
Shochiku Co., Ltd.
4-1-1 Tsukiji, Togeki Bldg. 12th Floor, Chuo-Ku, 104 8422, Tokyo
Japan
Phone: +81 355 501 623
Fax: +81 355 501 654
E-mail: [email protected]
First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.
