A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Actually, last week, I already saw ‘Genroku chûshingura’ from the same director and it’s interesting how both movies were so vastly different from each other. Indeed, while ‘Genroku chûshingura’ was a massive samurai epic lasting almost 4 hrs and involved dozens of different characters, this one was a rather minimalistic romantic drama lasting barely 90 mins with only 3 characters. The common thread between the 2 movies, in my opinion, was how the Japanese people seem or seemed to be stifled by ancient traditions and rules. On the other hand, you could argue that there is something beautiful or admirable about sacrificing yourself which is basically what the 3 main characters did here but, eventually, they all ended up feeling rather miserable after all. In fact, I thought that Shizu was more attractive than Oyu but I guess Shinnosuke saw something in Oyu that eluded me. To be honest, the reason why he was so obsessing about her was never really clear though. It was also interesting that, even though Shizu married Shinnosuke for her sister’s sake, Oyu really thought that her marriage was actually genuine. In the meantime, Shinnosuke was basically played by both women but he eventually didn’t get any of them after all. Still, even if it was well made and intriguing enough, at the end of the day, it was pretty much a vintage Japanese soap but, to be honest, not really much more than that though. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was not a masterpiece, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

7/10