''The Dancing Girl of Izu'' ( ja, 恋の花咲く伊豆の踊子, Koi no hana saku Izu no odoriko, The Blooming Love of a Dancing Girl of Izu) is a 1933 Japanese silent

romance film Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey ...

directed by

Heinosuke Gosho was a Japanese film director and screenwriter who directed Japan's first sound film, '' The Neighbor's Wife and Mine'', in 1931. His films are mostly associated with the shomin-geki (lit. "common people drama") genre. Among his most noted works ...

. It is the first adaptation of the 1926 short story by

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal an ...

Plot

During his vacation tour on

Izu peninsula The is a large mountainous peninsula with a deeply indented coastline to the west of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of the island of Honshu, Japan. Formerly known as Izu Province, Izu peninsula is now a part of Shizuoka Prefecture. The peninsul ...

, Tokyo student Mizuhara befriends a group of local travelling musicians led by Eikichi. Eikichi lost the family's inheritance, a gold mine, due to his carelessness, which he had to sell for a low price to its new owner Zenbei. While staying in their hometown where they have an engagement, Eikichi's sister Kaoru falls in love with Mizuhara. Instigated by the mine's former engineer Kubota, Eikichi demands what he considers his fair share from Zenbei, but Zenbei replies that he will only give Eikichi money if he sells his sister Kaoru to him. Mizuhara confronts Zenbei, who also happens to be the father of his fellow student Ryūichi, with what he considers an insolent proposal. As it turns out, Zenbei, who was a friend of Eikichi's and Kaoru's father, wants to spare Kaoru the fate of living the life of a travelling musician. Unbeknownst to Kaoru and her brother, Zenbei secretly opened a bank account in her name and hopes to marry her to his son Ryūichi one day. Mizuhara and Kaoru part in tears upon his return to Tokyo, and before entering the boat which will take him home, he advises her to seek happiness in a stable life as Ryūichi's wife.

Cast

*Den Ohinata (credited Den Obinata) as Mizuhara *

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). W ...

as Kaoru *Tokuji Kobayashi as Eikichi *Eiko Takamatsu as Otatsu, Eikichi's mother *Kinuko Wakamizu as Chiyoko, Eikichi's wife *Shizue Hyōdō as Yuriko *Jun Arai as Zenbei *Ryōichi Takeuchi as Ryūichi *Reikichi Kawamura as Kubota *Ryōtarō Mizushima as Tamura *

Takeshi Sakamoto was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1926 to 1965. Selected filmography External links * 1899 births 1974 deaths Japanese male film actors Actors from Hyōgo Prefecture {{Japan-film-actor-stub ...

as Hattori * Chōko Iida as a geisha *Kikuko Hanaoka as a geisha *Shōzaburō Abe as customer *Kiyoshi Aono as Kisaku

Legacy

''The Dancing Girl of Izu'' is not only the first, but also regarded the best of the many adaptations of Kawabata's story, and an important example of films connected to the ''junbungaku'' ("pure literature") movement, which favoured "serious" literature in opposition to "popular" literature. Gosho and his screenwriter Fushimi added a subplot and obscured the class differences between the characters, instead aiming at a nostalgic depiction of the country "untainted by modernization" (Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano).

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dancing Girl of Izu, The 1933 films 1930s Japanese-language films Japanese silent films Japanese romance films Japanese black-and-white films Films based on short fiction Films directed by Heinosuke Gosho