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Ugetsu
, is a 1953 Japanese historical drama and fantasy film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō. It is based on two stories in Ueda Akinari's 1776 book of the same name, combining elements of the ''jidaigeki'' (period drama) genre with a ghost story. Drawing from Ueda's tales "The House in the Thicket" and "The Lust of the White Serpent", the film is set in Japan's civil war torn Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600). In a small rural community, a potter leaves his wife and young son behind to make money selling pottery and ends up being seduced by a spirit that makes him forget all about his family. A subplot, inspired by Guy de Maupassant's 1883 short story "How He Got the Legion of Honor" ("Décoré !"), involves his brother-in-law, who dreams of becoming a samurai and chases this goal at the unintended expense of his wife. The film won the Silver Lion Award at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and other honours. ''Ugetsu'' is one of Mizoguchi's mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ugetsu Monogatari
is a collection of nine supernatural tales first published in 1776. It is the best known work of Japanese author Ueda Akinari. Largely adapted from traditional Japanese and Chinese ghost stories, the collection is among the most important works of Edo period (1603–1867) and literature, and is considered a predecessor of the genre. Kenji Mizoguchi's award-winning film (1953), credited with helping popularize Japanese cinema in the West, was adapted from two of the collection's stories. Title The word is a compound word; means "rain", while translates to "moon". It derives from a passage in the book's preface describing "a night with a misty moon after the rains", and references a Noh play, also called , which also employs the common contemporary symbols of rain and moon. These images evoked the supernatural and mysterious in East Asian literature; Qu You's (; a story from , one of Ueda's major sources), indicates that a rainy night or a morning moon may presage the comi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ueda Akinari
Ueda Akinari or Ueda Shūsei (, July 25, 1734 in Osaka – August 8, 1809 in Kyoto) was a Japanese author, scholar and ''waka'' poet, and a prominent literary figure in 18th-century Japan. He was an early writer in the ''yomihon'' genre and his two masterpieces, ''Ugetsu Monogatari'' ("Tales of Rain and the Moon") and ''Harusame Monogatari'' ("Tales of Spring Rain"), are central to the canon of Japanese literature. Biography Born to an Osaka prostitute and an unknown father, Ueda was adopted in his fourth year by a wealthy merchant who reared him in comfort and provided him with a good education. As a child he became gravely ill with smallpox, and although he survived, he was left with deformed fingers on both hands. During his illness, his parents prayed to the god of the Kashima Inari Shrine, and Ueda felt that this deity had intervened and saved his life. Throughout his life he remained a strong believer in the supernatural, and this belief seems to inform important el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenji Mizoguchi
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, who directed about one hundred films during his career between 1923 and 1956. His most acclaimed works include ''The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums'' (1939), ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952), ''Ugetsu'' (1953), and '' Sansho the Bailiff'' (1954), with the latter three all being awarded at the Venice International Film Festival. A recurring theme of his films was the oppression of women in historical and contemporary Japan. Together with Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu, Mizoguchi is seen as a representative of the "golden age" of Japanese cinema. Biography Early years Mizoguchi was born in Hongō, Tokyo, as the second of three children, to Zentaro Miguchi, a roofing carpenter, and his wife Masa. The family's background was relatively humble until the father's failed business venture of selling raincoats to the Japanese troops during the Russo-Japanese War. The family was forced to move to the downtown district of Asakusa and gave Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinuyo Tanaka
was a Japanese actress and film director. She had a career lasting over 50 years with more than 250 acting credits, but was best known for her 15 films with director Kenji Mizoguchi, such as ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952) and ''Ugetsu'' (1953). With her 1953 directorial debut, ''Love Letter'', Tanaka became the second Japanese woman to direct a film, after Tazuko Sakane. Biography Early life and career Tanaka was born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, the youngest of nine children of Kumekichi and Yasu Tanaka. Her family were ''kimono'' merchants. Although her family was originally wealthy, after her father Kumekichi died in 1912, the family began having financial troubles. She learned playing the biwa at an early age and moved to Osaka in 1920, where she joined the Biwa Girls' Operetta Troupe. Tanaka's first credited film appearance was in ''Genroku Onna'' (lit. "A Woman of the Genroku era") in 1924, which also marked the start of her affiliation with the Shochiku Studios. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
14th Venice International Film Festival
The 14th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 20 August to 4 September 1953. The Golden Lion of Saint Mark was not awarded this year. The jury, having examined the films in competition and noting the considerable average high level of the motion pictures presented, found that no work prevailed in terms of absolute value. In accordance with article 20 of the 1953 regulation, the jury requested from the president of the festival the authorization not to award the Grand Prix, which was finally granted. Instead, the jury decided to award the Silver Lion to six films. Jury * Eugenio Montale (head of jury) * Gaetano Carancini * Sandro De Feo * Nino Ghelli * Gian Gaspare Napolitano * * Antonio Petrucci In Competition Awards *Silver Lion **''Thérèse Raquin'' (Marcel Carné) **''Ugetsu'' (Kenji Mizoguchi) **''Moulin Rouge'' (John Huston) **''I Vitelloni'' (Federico Fellini) **''Sadko'' (Aleksandr Ptushko) **'' Little Fugitive'' (Ray Ashley, Morris Engel and Rut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cinema Of Japan
The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that earned 54.9% of a box office total of US$2.338 billion. Films have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived. ''Tokyo Story'' (1953) ranked number three in ''Sight & Sound'' critics' list of the 100 greatest films of all time. ''Tokyo Story'' also topped the 2012 ''Sight & Sound'' directors' poll of The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, dethroning '' Citizen Kane'', while Akira Kurosawa's '' Seven Samurai'' (1954) was voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's 2018 poll of 209 critics in 43 countries. Japan has won the Academy Award for the Best International Feature Film four times, more than any other Asian country. Japan's Big Four film studios are Toho, Toei, Shochiku and Kadoka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masaichi Nagata
was a Japanese businessman and served as president of Daiei Film. The self-proclaimed creator of Gamera, he produced the kaiju's second film ''Gamera vs. Barugon'', with the remainder of the Showa ''Gamera'' films produced instead by his son Hidemasa Nagata. Film career Born in Kyoto, Nagata attended the Ōkura Kōtō Shōgyō Gakkō (now Tokyo Keizai University), but left before graduating. He joined the Nikkatsu studio in 1925 and, after working as a location manager, rose to become head of production at the Kyoto studio. Experiencing conflicts with the Nikkatsu president, he left the company in 1934, taking many Nikkatsu stars with him, to form Daiichi Eiga. While short-lived, that studio created such masterpieces as Kenji Mizoguchi's '' Sisters of the Gion'' (1936) and ''Osaka Elegy'' (1936). When Daiichi Eiga folded, Nagata became head of the Kyoto studio of Shinkō Kinema until the government reorganized the industry during World War Two. Against a government plan to comb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazuo Miyagawa
was a Japanese cinematographer. Career Born in Kyoto, Miyagawa was taken with sumi-e Chinese ink painting from the age of eleven and began to sell his work as an illustrator while a teenager. He became interested in the cinema during the 1920s, particularly admiring the German Expressionist silents. He joined the Nikkatsu film company in 1926 after graduating from Kyoto Commercial School. He began as a laboratory technician before becoming an assistant cameraman. Miyagawa is best known for his tracking shots, particularly those in ''Rashomon'' (1950), the first of his three collaborations with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. The other films with Kurosawa were ''Yojimbo'' (1961) and ''Kagemusha'' (1980). He also worked on multiple films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, including ''Ugetsu'' (1953), but only on a single Yasujirō Ozu production, ''Floating Weeds'' (1959). He oversaw 164 cameramen for Kon Ichikawa's ''Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), a documentary which necessitated the development ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masayuki Mori (actor)
was a Japanese actor and son of novelist Takeo Arishima. Mori appeared in many of Akira Kurosawa's films such as ''Rashomon'', ''The Idiot'' and ''The Bad Sleep Well''. He also starred in pictures by Kenji Mizoguchi (''Ugetsu''), Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, ... ('' Floating Clouds'') and other prominent directors. Selected filmography Films Television External links * * Japanese male film actors People from Sapporo 1911 births 1973 deaths 20th-century Japanese male actors {{Japan-film-actor-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fumio Hayasaka
Fumio Hayasaka (早坂 文雄 ''Hayasaka Fumio''; August 19, 1914 – October 15, 1955) was a Japanese composer of classical music and film scores. Early life Hayasaka was born in the city of Sendai on the main Japanese island of Honshū. In 1918, Hayasaka and his family moved to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaidō. In 1933, Hayasaka and Akira Ifukube organized the New Music League, which held a new music festival the year after. Hayasaka won a number of prizes for his early concert works; in 1935, his piece ''Futatsu no sanka e no zensōkyoku'' won first prize in a radio competition, and another concert piece, ''Kodai no bukyoku'', won the 1938 Weingartner Prize. Other early works include a ''Nocturne'' (1936) for piano and the orchestral ''Ancient Dance'' (1938). In 1939, Hayasaka moved to Tokyo to begin a career as film composer. By early 1940, Hayasaka was seen as "a major composer for Japanese Cinema". Post-War film music After the war, Hayasaka continued ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daiei Film
Daiei Film Co. Ltd. ( Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ''Daiei Eiga Kabushiki Kaisha'') was a Japanese film studio. Founded in 1942 as Dai Nippon Film Co., Ltd., it was one of the major studios during the postwar Golden Age of Japanese cinema, producing not only artistic masterpieces, such as Akira Kurosawa's '' Rashomon'' (1950) and Kenji Mizoguchi's ''Ugetsu'' (1953), but also launching several film series, such as ''Gamera'', ''Zatoichi'' and ''Yokai Monsters'', and making the three ''Daimajin'' films (1966). It declared bankruptcy in 1971 and was acquired by Kadokawa Pictures. History Origin Daiei Film was the product of government efforts to reorganize the film industry during World War II in order to rationalize use of resources and increase control over the medium. Against a government plan to combine all the film studios into two companies, Masaichi Nagata, an executive at Shinkō Kinema, pressed hard for an alternative plan to create three studios. His efforts won out and Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasy Film
Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction films and horror films, although the genres do overlap. Fantasy films often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, escapism, and the extraordinary. Prevalent elements include fairies, angels, mermaids, witches, monsters, wizards, unicorns, dragons, talking animals, ogres, elves, trolls, white magic, gnomes, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, dwarves, giants, goblins, anthropomorphic or magical objects, familiars, curses and other enchantments, worlds involving magic, and the Middle Ages. Subgenres Several sub-categories of fantasy films can be identified, although the delineations between these subgenres, much as in fantasy literature, are somewhat fluid. The most common fantasy subgenres depicted in movies are High Fantasy a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
