''Wife! Be Like a Rose!'' ''Kimiko'' ( ja, 妻よ薔薇のやうに, Tsuma yo bara no yô ni) is a 1935 Japanese

comedy drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple co ...

film directed by

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, ...

. It is based on the

shinpa (also rendered ''shimpa'') is a form of theater in Japan, usually featuring melodramatic stories, contrasted with the more traditional ''kabuki'' style. It later spread to cinema. Art form The roots of ''Shinpa'' can be traced to a form of agi ...

play ''Futari tsuma'' (二人妻, lit. ''Two Wives'') by Minoru Nakano and one of Naruse's earliest

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

s. ''Wife! Be Like a Rose!'' was one of the first Japanese films to see a theatrical release in the United States.

Plot

Kimiko, a young modern

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 ...

woman, lives alone with her poetress mother Etsuko. Etsuko still grieves for her former husband Shunsaku, who left the family for ex-geisha Oyuki fifteen years ago, although Kimiko remembers their marriage not as a happy one. The only contact between Shunsaku, Etsuko and his daughter are money orders without personal messages he sends them. Kimiko travels to the countryside to talk Shunsaku into returning to the family, as her boyfriend Seiji's father wants to meet him before giving his admittance to Kimiko's and Seiji's marriage. Contrary to her expectations, Shunsaku is happy with his new wife and their two children, and Oyuki turns out to be a warm-hearted person instead of the calculating woman Kimiko was sure to meet. Not only does she support her husband, whose business is going badly, but it is also she, not Shunsaku, who is sending the money to Etsuko and Kimiko. Shunsaku agrees to go to Tokyo with Kimiko, but after a short discordant time spent with his ex-wife, he returns to Oyuki and his children, while Kimiko finally accepts that the past can't be reversed.

Cast

* Sachiko Chiba as Kimiko Yamamoto * Heihachirō Ōkawa as Seiji, Kimiko's boyfriend *

Yuriko Hanabusa was a Japanese actress. She appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1970. Selected filmography * ''Wife! Be Like a Rose!'' (1935) * ''The Daughter of the Samurai'' (1937) * ''Young People'' (1937) * '' Spring on Leper's Island'' (1940) ...

as Oyuki * Tomoko Itō as Etsuko, Kimiko's mother * Setsuko Horikoshi as Shizuko, Oyuki's daughter * Chikako Hosokawa as Shingo's wife * Sadao Maruyama as Shunsaku, Kimiko's father * Kaoru Itō as Kenichi, Oyuki's son *

Kamatari Fujiwara was a Japanese actor. Fujiwara worked regularly and extensively with Akira Kurosawa, and was known for both being adept at comic acting, as well as being able to take on serious roles. Early life and career Early life Fujiwara was born on ...

as Shingo, Etsuko's brother

Production and legacy

Naruse had joined P.C.L. studios (soon to merge into

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 ...

) only the year before, unhappy with the working conditions at his former studio

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 ...

. ''Wife! Be Like a Rose!'' received the 1936

Kinema Junpo Award , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

as Best Film of the Year and opened in New York in 1937 under the title ''Kimiko''. Film historians have since emphasised the film's "sprightly, modern feel" and "innovative visual style" and "progressive social attitudes".

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wife! Be Like a Rose! 1935 films 1935 comedy-drama films 1930s Japanese-language films Japanese comedy-drama films Japanese films based on plays Films directed by Mikio Naruse