is a 1959 color Japanese film directed by

Keisuke Kinoshita was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasu ...

Plot

Facing financial difficulties, young couple Shôichi and Yasuko Satô rent their suburban home to his boss over the summer. While Shôichi rooms with a friend, Yasuko and their son Kazuo stay with her family in a troubled resort community, where visiting

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

and their underlings threaten and injure her brothers, a cab driver and an aspiring singer. She befriends a depressed war veteran whose estranged wife is pressured by the yakuza to become their moll after a sudden tragedy, leading to a climactic confrontation. The couple returns to their home, where Yasuko copes with her renewed desperation at life's futility.

Production

The role of Shusuke Takemura, the veteran befriended by Yasuko, was played by

Kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

actor Kanzaburō Nakamura XVII, whose four-year-old son Kankurô (later Kanzaburō Nakamura XVIII) played Kazuo, sharing screen credit with the popular stars who played his parents,

Teiji Takahashi was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than twenty films from 1950 to 1959. Takahashi died in a traffic accident. Career Born in Tokyo, Takahashi graduated from the Japanese Film School (Nihon Eiga Gakkō) and joined the Shochiku studi ...

—who died in an automobile accident shortly after the film's release—and

Yoshiko Kuga is a Japanese people, Japanese actress. Biography and personal life Kuga was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her father, , was a marquis and a member of the House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. In 1946, while still attending Gakushuin Junior High Sc ...

. The senior Nakamura received the only solo screen credit among the cast members. His wife Tomoe was played by

Murasaki Fujima was a Japanese actress and dancer who also acted in more than 75 films. Dance career A child prodigy and daughter of the president of Nippon Medical School, Fujima ultimately became a Grand Master of the Fujima style, one of the five major schoo ...

, a star of Japanese dance who appeared in many postwar films, and the yakuza who menace her were played by familiar performers

Rentarō Mikuni (also sometimes credited as 三国連太郎) (January 20, 1923 – April 14, 2013) was a Japanese film actor from Gunma Prefecture. He appeared in over 150 films since making his screen debut in 1951, and won three Japanese Academy Awards for ...

and

Kōji Mitsui was a Japanese movie, TV, and stage actor. He appeared in more than 150 films from 1925 to 1975, including 29 of ''Kinema Junpo''’s annual Top-10 winners and three of its 10 best Japanese films of all time. In 2000 the magazine named him one ...

. One-time

Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not all ...

leading man

Shūji Sano was a Japanese actor active from 1936 to 1977. A popular star of the Shōchiku film studios, he is best known for his appearances in the films of Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Heinosuke Gosho and Hiroshi Shimizu. Selected filmography * 19 ...

has a cameo as an executive whose vacationing wife is entertained off-screen by Shôichi.

Takahiro Tamura was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in 100 films between 1954 and 2005. He and his younger brothers Masakazu and Ryō were known as the three Tamura brothers. They were sons of actor Tsumasaburo Bando. Biography Tamura graduated from Dosh ...

, who had a large role in the director's '' The Eternal Rainbow'' the year before, is barely onscreen as Yasuko's older brother Tetsuo. Kinoshita capitalized on the singing career of Kazuya Kosaka in casting him as Yasuko's younger brother Gorô, whose proud decision not to aspire to a higher class or calling seems influenced by his kinship with the fatalistic Takemura. Gorô's romantic interest, Noriko, is played by Mie Fuji, making her film debut after being discovered by Kinoshita's brother Chuji, who wrote the film's score; Fuji would appear in one more Kinoshita film before joining

Toho is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer an ...

, who changed her name to Yôko Fujiyama and cast her in several comedy, science-fiction, and youth-oriented films until her retirement to start a family in the late 1960s. One of Kinoshita's shortest features, ''Thus Another Day'' has multiple plot threads that some modern critics believe overcomplicate the storyline. The film's brisk pace includes many cinematic ellipses that either withhold information for later revelation—such as the identity of the driver who transports the yakuza to their vacation home—or permit viewers to imagine sequences that aren’t explicitly shown, such as the fate of Shusuke and Tomoe's daughter; his confrontation with the yakuza who have cuckolded him; and the two visits of Shôichi to the executive's wife. Kinoshita filmed much of ''Thus Another Day'' on location in both

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and the resort area of

Karuizawa is a resort town located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 20,323 in 9897 households, and a population density of 130 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Karuizawa is one of the oldest and most ...

, which features prominently in the boating and waterfront talent show scenes.

Themes

While the theme of

postwar In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

desperation in the Japanese family ethos is familiar in films by directors like

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in t ...

(who also favored plot ellipses), Kinoshita's movies were generally more hopeful in tone than ''Thus Another Day''. The depiction of Shusuke's

PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a ...

is paralleled with Yasuko's depression over her struggle to survive in a consumerist society with a husband driven to succeed within the

salaryman In Japan, a is a salaried worker. In Japanese popular culture, this is embodied by a white-collar worker who shows overriding loyalty and commitment to the corporation where he works. Salarymen are expected to work long hours, to put in addit ...

culture. Kinoshita's linkage of the two characters, combined with the threats and physical injury endured by the film's two extended family units, suggests a postwar Japanese middle class facing an uncertain and troubled future. The poem (attributed to

Tōson Shimazaki was the pen-name of Haruki Shimazaki, a Japanese writer active in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. He began his career as a Romantic poet, but went on to establish himself as a major proponent of Japanese Naturalism. Ea ...

) from which the movie's English title derives could be interpreted as a blithe directive to live a carefree life, but as recited by Shusuke Takemura it instead underscores the film's theme of life's futility: ''Yesterday was just another day,''
''Thus another day today.''
''Why should I feel uneasy?''
''Why worry about tomorrow?''

Cast

as Yasuko Satô, a housewife and mother *

as Shôichi Satô, her husband * Kanzaburō Nakamura XVII as Shusuke Takemura, a veteran *

as Tomoe Takemura, his estranged wife *

as Kenzô Akada, a yakuza boss *

as Man A, his crony *

as Tetsuo Mori, the elder brother of Yasuko * Kazuya Kosaka as Gorô Mori, the younger brother of Yasuko * Mie Fuji (later known as Yôko Fujiyama) as Noriko, his girlfriend *

Toshiko Kobayashi was a Japanese actress active from 1949 to 1980. She joined the Nichigeki Dancing Team in 1946. In 1949, she was discovered by film director Keisuke Kinoshita and gave her film debut in his comedy ''Broken Drum''. Under contract with the Shochik ...

as Haruko Mori, Tetsuo's wife *

as the managing director of Shôichi's firm * Kanzaburō Nakamura XVIII as Kazuo Satô (billed as Kankurô Nakamura), Yasuko and Shôichi's son

Availability

Though the film has not been released on disc in the United States, it was one of the inaugural films available in Spring 2019 for streaming on The Criterion Channel.

References

External links

* {{Keisuke Kinoshita Films directed by Keisuke Kinoshita 1959 films Shochiku films Films with screenplays by Keisuke Kinoshita