87% (2)  Floating Weeds  119 min,  [Drama]  [Yasujirô Ozu]  [24 Nov 1970]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 80%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 95%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Ayako Wakao, Ganjirô Nakamura, Haruko Sugimura, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Machiko Kyô
Writer:  Yasujirô Ozu (screenplay), Kôgo Noda (screenplay)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  A troupe of travelling players arrive at a small seaport in the south of Japan. Komajuro Arashi, the aging master of the troupe, goes to visit his old flame Oyoshi and their son Kiyoshi, even though Kiyoshi believes Komajuro is his uncle. The leading actress Sumiko is jealous and so, in order to humiliate the master, persuades the younger actress Kayo to seduce Kiyoshi.
Rotten Tomatoes:   This 1959 Ozu production centers on the likable but fallible leader of an itinerant acting troupe ("floating weeds" being the Japanese name for such groups), Kimajuro, played brilliantly by Ganjiro Nakamura. The film opens on a lazy, stagnant river as the troupe lays spread about on a boat deck drifting downstream. It's obvious that they're a ragged bunch as they sit fanning themselves and smoking on deck. The boat pulls into a quiet fishing village where the troupe proceeds to canvass the town, hanging up posters and performing impromptu stunts for the inhabitants. Kimajuro and his actress mistress, Sumiko (Machiko Kyo), head to the theatre and secure their cramped quarters above the theatre's main hall. Kimajuro leaves to pay a visit to a local saki bar owned by Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), who, years previous, had conceived a child with Kimajuro. The child has grown into a strapping young man, Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), who has a good job at the post office. Kimajuro, although clearly proud of his son, has refused to take responsibility for the child and Kiyoshi thinks Kimajuro is merely his uncle. Unbeknownst to Kimajuro, Sumiko has discovered his secret, and, infuriated, hires a young actress to seduce Kiyoshi. Terrified that his son is falling for this woman of loose morals, Kimajuro has to decide what's most important: keeping his secret safe or saving his son by acknowledging his paternity. ~ Brian Whitener, Rovi
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85% (2)  An Actor's Revenge  115 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama]  [Kon Ichikawa]  [16 Jun 1971]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 76%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 94%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win.
Actors:  Ayako Wakao, Eiji Funakoshi, Fujiko Yamamoto, Kazuo Hasegawa
Writer:  Otokichi Mikami (newspaper serial), Daisuke Itô (screenplay), Teinosuke Kinugasa (screenplay), Natto Wada (scenario)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  While performing in a touring kabuki troupe, leading female impersonator Yukinojo comes across the three men who drove his parents to suicide twenty years earlier, and plans his revenge, firstly by seducing the daughter of one of them, secondly by ruining them...
Rotten Tomatoes:   In this renowned and classic Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa, the great Kabuki onnagata Kasuo Hasegawa celebrates his 300th film appearance in a role designed especially for him. One of the classic theater styles of Japan, Kabuki does not use women in female roles. Highly trained male actors, called "onnagata," perform in them, and are often more convincing as women than many women might be. In the story, set in 1836, Yukinojo (Kasuo Hasegawa) is an onnagata, travelling to Edo in feminine disguise. On his journey, he recognizes three ruthless merchants who ruined his father's business, driving him to suicide. Pledged to revenge his father's death, he follows them, and with the help of a mysterious bandit martial artist named Yamitaro (also Hasegawa), fulfills his pledge, even though this means the destruction of one of the merchant's innocent daughters, who has fallen in love with him. Actor Hasegawa performed these same roles in a 1935 film version of this same story, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa, who consulted on this film. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
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81% (2)  Street of Shame  87 min,  [Drama]  [Kenji Mizoguchi]  [04 Jun 1959]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 80%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 82%,   External Reviews
Awards:  2 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors:  Aiko Mimasu, Ayako Wakao, Machiko Kyô, Michiyo Kogure
Writer:  Masashige Narusawa, Yoshiko Shibaki (novel)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  Five prostitutes work at Dreamland, in Tokyo's Yoshiwara district. As the Diet considers a ban on prostitution, the women's daily dramas play out. Each has dreams and motivations. Hanae is married, her husband unemployed; they have a young child. Yumeko, a widow, uses her earnings to raise and support her son, who's now old enough to work and care for her. The aging Yorie has a man who wants to marry her. Yasumi saves money diligently to pay her debt and get out; she also has a suitor who wants to marry her, but she has other plans for him. Mickey seems the most devil-may-care, until her father comes from Kobe to bring her news of her family and ask her to come home.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Kenji Mizoguchi's final film was on one of his favorite subjects: prostitutes. After a spate of universally lauded period pieces, Mizoguchi returned to the socially conscious dramas that he made famous in the 1930s. Here, as in Osaka Elegy (1936), he offered a scathing critique of society's hypocrisies and exploitative treatment of women, without the sort of transcendence seen in Life of Oharu (1952). This gritty drama of six working girls in one brothel in Tokyo's Yoshiwara red-light district explores how the women came to work in such a place -- trying to pay for their children's education, trying to bail their fathers out of prison, trying to support their out-of-work husbands -- and how they fight to maintain their dignity in spite of the degradations of their profession. Machiko Kyo gives a remarkable performance as Mickey, a cynical hooker with a heart of stone, who shames and then cruelly propositions her own father, while Aiko Mimasu plays the aging Yumeko, who is emotionally shattered after her son rejects her. This film was reportedly instrumental in the outlawing of prostitution in Japan.
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75% (1)  The Blue Sky Maiden  88 min,  [Comedy, Drama]  [Yasuzô Masumura]  [08 Oct 1957]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 75%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Ayako Wakao, Keizô Kawasaki, Kenji Sugawara, Ryûji Shinagawa
Writer:  Keita Genji (novel), Yoshio Shirasaka
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  Yuko is sent to the coastal regions to be raised away from the rest of her sophisticated family where she finds out from her ill grandmother that she is actually the love child of her wealthy businessman father and his ex-secretary.
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75% (1)  A False Student  94 min,  [Comedy, Drama]  [Yasuzô Masumura]  [08 Oct 1960]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 75%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Ayako Wakao, Eiji Funakoshi, Jerry Fujio, Jun Fujimaki
Writer:  Kenzaburô Oe (novel), Yoshio Shirasaka
External Links:  Wikipedia  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  After failing the entrance exam for university for the fourth time, a young man pretends to be a student to avoid the shame of his family.
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