Woman (1948 film)

Woman
Onna
Directed byKeisuke Kinoshita
Written byKeisuke Kinoshita
Produced byTakeshi Ogura
Starring
CinematographyHiroyuki Kusuda
Edited byYoshi Sugihara[1]
Music byChūji Kinoshita
Production
company
Distributed byShochiku
Release date
  • 2 April 1948 (1948-04-02) (Japan)
[2][3]
Running time
67 minutes[3][4]
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Woman (女, Onna) is a 1948 Japanese drama film written and directed by Keisuke Kinoshita.[2][3][4]

Plot

Revue dancer Toshiko is approached by her boyfriend Tadashi, who demands that she cancels her engagements to meet him in the city of Hakone. Although weary of his ongoing criminal behaviour, she does as he tells her, but after she learns that he was involved in a burglary and the killing of a policeman, she pleas with him to leave her. Tadashi explains his conduct with his desperate situation after his return from the war, and promises to change his ways if she stays with him. Upon their arrival in Atami, Tadashi steals money from a pawn shop to pay for the passover to Hamamatsu, and Toshiko realises that his promise was a mere pretense. Toshiko, followed by Tadashi who threatens to kill her, turns to the police, who arrest Tadashi.

Cast

Production, release and reception

Woman was shot on location in and around Atami[5][6] and released on 2 April 1948.[2][3]

According to an article on Kinoshita in the Mainichi Shimbun published periodical New Japan, he succeeded in combining a "lyric [sic] style with a psychological angle" with this film.[7]

Legacy

Woman was presented in 2012 by the Film at Lincoln Center society, New York, as part of its Keisuke Kinoshita retrospective,[6] and at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival,[8] where it was announced as a "desperate portrait of a lethal passion against the backdrop of a Japan trying to return to some kind of normalcy",[6] consisting of "dangerously tilted images in which everything appears to be out of balance".[8]

Woman was released on DVD in Japan in 2012 as part of the "Keisuke Kinoshita 100th birthday volume 2" DVD box.[9]

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Onna – Woman" (PDF). Berlinale.de (in German). 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "女". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d "女(1948)". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  4. ^ a b "Woman". Shochiku Films. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  5. ^ Bock, Audie (1978). Japanese Film Directors. Japan Society. p. 201.
  6. ^ a b c "Woman – Onna". Film at Lincoln Center. 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  7. ^ New Japan. Vol. 11. Tokyo: Mainichi Newspapers. 1959. p. 156.
  8. ^ a b "Onna – Woman". Berlinale.de (in German). 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  9. ^ "Kinoshita Keisuke Seitan 100 Nen Kinoshita Keisuke DVD-Box Vol.2". CD Japan. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  10. ^ "毎日映画コンクール 第3回（1948年）". Mainichi.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 30 July 2023.