HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

is a 1963 Japanese
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Noboru Nakamura was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Biography After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1936, Nakamura joined the Shochiku film studios, working as an assistant director for Torajirō Saitō and Yasujirō Shimazu. He debu ...
and the first adaptation of the novel ''
The Old Capital is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata first published in 1962. It was one of three novels cited by the Nobel Committee in their decision to award Kawabata the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature. ''The Old Capital'' was first translated i ...
'' (1962) by
Nobel prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
-winning Japanese writer
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 ...
. The film was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
.


Plot

20-year-old Chieko is the daughter of
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
based
kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...
designer Takichiro. She doubts her parents' story that they stole her as a child and raised her as their own, convinced that she is an orphan. In
Kitayama is an exclave List of villages in Japan, village that belongs to Higashimuro District, Wakayama, Higashimuro District, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, but is located on the border between Mie Prefecture, Mie and Nara Prefecture, Nara Prefectures. It ...
, she meets a young labourer woman, Naeko, who looks exactly like her. Chieko learns that they are twin sisters, and that their natural parents died long ago after abandoning Chieko. Hideo, the son of weaver Sosuke, a business associate of Takichiro, mistakes Naeko for Chieko and pleads with her to allow him to design an exclusive
obi #REDIRECT Obi {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous title ...
for her. Chieko clarifies Hideo's mistaking and asks him to make obis both for her and her sister. Although Chieko's parents offer to accept Naeko as their second daughter, Naeko returns to her home village after spending one night at her twin sister's home. While Chieko plans to take over her father's business with the help of her future husband Ryusuke, Naeko considers marrying Hideo, even when she knows that for Hideo she is mainly a surrogate for Chieko.


Cast

*
Shima Iwashita is a Japanese actress who has appeared in about 100 films and many TV productions. She is married to film director Masahiro Shinoda, in whose films she has frequently appeared. She won the award for best actress at the 2nd Hochi Film Award for h ...
as Chieko / Naeko *
Hiroyuki Nagato , stage name of Akio Kato (加藤晃夫), was a Japanese actor. He starred in ''Season of the Sun'', '' Endless Desire'', '' My Second Brother'', '' Stolen Desire'', and '' Sukeban Deka'', and ''Yo-Yo Girl Cop''. Life and career Nagato was bo ...
as Hideo Otomo *
Seiji Miyaguchi was a Japanese actor who appeared in films of Akira Kurosawa, Yasujirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse, Tadashi Imai and many others. He succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 71. Distinctions One of Kurosawa's iconic ''Seven Samurai'', Miyaguchi won the 195 ...
as Takichiro Sada * Teruo Yoshida as Ryusuke Mizuki * Tamotsu Hayakawa as Shinichi Mizuki *
Eijirō Tōno was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting more than 50 years, appeared in over 400 television shows, nearly 250 films and numerous stage productions. He is best known in the West for his roles in films by Akira Kurosawa, such as ''Seven Samu ...
as Sosuke Otomo * Yoshiko Nakamura as Shige * Michiyo Tamaki as Masako *
Chieko Naniwa Chieko Naniwa (浪花 千栄子) (November 19, 1907 – December 22, 1973) was a Japanese actress who was active from the 1920s to the 1970s. She is best known for playing geisha in several films, such as Keiji Mizoguchi's '' A Geisha'', and ...
as madam


Awards and legacy

''Twin Sisters of Kyoto'' received the
Mainichi Film Concours The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...
for Best Supporting Actor (Hiroyuki Nagato) and Best Cinematography (Tōichirō Narushima). Kawabata's novel was adapted again as ''
Koto Koto may refer to: * Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group * Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument * Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana * Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women * K ...
'' by
Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary ''Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won t ...
in 1980 and by Yuki Saito in 2016.


See also

*
List of submissions to the 36th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of submissions to the 36th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honour non- English-speaking films ...
*
List of Japanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Japan has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film since the inception of the award. The award is handed out annually by the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a feature-length motion pi ...


References


External links

* {{Noboru Nakamura 1963 films 1963 drama films Films based on Japanese novels Films based on works by Yasunari Kawabata Films directed by Noboru Nakamura Japanese drama films Twins in fiction Films about twin sisters 1960s Japanese films 1960s Japanese-language films