, also titled ''The Downfall of Osen'', is a 1935 Japanese silent film directed by

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), ''Uget ...

starring

Isuzu Yamada was a Japanese stage and screen actress whose career spanned seven decades. Biography Yamada was born in Osaka as Mitsu Yamada, the daughter of Kusudu Yamada, a shinpa actor specialising in onnagata roles, and Ritsu, a geisha. Under her mother ...

. It is based on a short story by

Kyōka Izumi , real name , was a Japanese people, Japanese author of novels, short stories, and kabuki plays who was active during the Empire of Japan, prewar period. Kyōka's writing differed greatly from that of the naturalist writers who dominated the li ...

Plot

While waiting for a delayed train at a train station, Sōkichi Hata, a medical professor, overhears other travelers talking about a courtesan in their midst. He reminisces his past when he was about to commit suicide and saved by Osen, a young woman acting as a decoy for a gang of traffickers led by Kumazawa. Osen convinces Kumazawa to take Sōkichi in as a servant, later learning that Sōkichi came to Tokyo to study medicine but failed due to his shortage of money. Outraged both at the gang's misdeeds and their repeated maltreatment of Sōkichi, she finally gives them away to the police and decides to help Sōkichi to take up his studies. When Sōkichi and Osen, who sees her solely as an elder sister, run out of money, she turns to prostitution and theft to help him finish his exams. After Osen is arrested by the police, Sōkichi's professor sees to his wellbeing. Back in the present, the train personnel look for a doctor after one of the waiting travelers has collapsed. Sōkichi offers his help, only to find out that the collapsed person is none other than Osen. At the hospital, Sōkichi tries to make her recall their time together, but Osen, having lost her sanity, is unable to recognise him, stuck in memories of Sōkichi, whom she blames for having forgotten her.

Cast

as Osen * Daijirō Natsukawa as Sokichi Hata * Ichirō Yoshizawa as Ukiki * Shin Shibata as Kumazawa * Genichi Fujii as Matsuda *

Eiji Nakano was a Japanese film actor. Career Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, Nakano attended Hōsei University, but left before graduating. When he was playing for the Nikkatsu amateur baseball team, he was scouted as an actor and made his debut in 1925 in ...

as Professor

Legacy

''Orizuru Osen'' was one in a series of adaptations of Izumi's stories directed by Mizoguchi, a writer he admired. Film scholar Chika Kinoshita noted that the film occupies a special place within the critical reception of Mizoguchi's oeuvre and that it has been singled out as one of the earliest embodiments of his style in the late 1930s. In his ''Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors'', Alexander Jacoby wrote that ''Orizuru Osen'' "displayed in embryo tsdirector's capacity for rich atmospheric detail and his abiding concern with the oppression of women". ''Orizuru Osen'' has repeatedly been screened with live

benshi were Japanese performers who provided live narration for silent films (both Japanese films and Western films). ''Benshi'' are sometimes called or . Role The earliest films available for public display were produced by Western studios, portraying ...

narration by

Midori Sawato is a Japanese benshi or katsuben (silent film narrator). Life Originally from Tokyo, Midori Sawato graduated from the Department of Philosophy, Hosei University. She first decided she wanted to become a benshi in 1972, when she saw the silent fi ...

Plot

Cast

Legacy

References

External links

Further reading