The title translates literally as "Dancing Girl of Izu".
A very enjoyable, if maybe overly sentimental film from one of the most, relatively, well known Japanese Golden Age directors. The plot is of a young man, fresh out of "high school" (but really undergraduate college as far as western audiences are concerned) who falls for a young itinerant actress, who, along with her brother, becomes involved with some shady and interesting characters which leads to conflict (and a memorable resolution.) This silent was originally planned to be a sound film, but due to budget restraints wasn't. I couldn't help but think during viewing that this was it's fatal flaw. A film this energetic (very Griffith like, with more cuts than I could count, the most Eisensteinian Japanese film I'd seen since Page of Madness) needed a musical counterpoint (and the overblown benshi narration on the video copy I viewed didn't last two minutes before my manual muting of it.) This film came after Gosho's highly successful (the first truly successful talkie in Japan) My Neighbor's Wife and Mine (which I'll watch soon enough), and also initiated a long series of Dancing Girl of Izu films (six to date) along with introducing the Junbungaku ("pure literature") movement in film adaptations. It also was a massive boon to the career of Tanaka Kinuyo, which makes it pretty important from any point of view. I did very much enjoy it (despite the problems mentioned earlier) and would consider it an equal to the single 30s era Naruse film I've seen (Wife! Be Like A Rose, and until I see otherwise I consider this director to begin hitting his stride in the 50s), but definitely lesser than Ozu, Yamanaka, and Shimizu. Watched with no subtitles, though I had a copy of the new book on Gosho, and McDonald's piece on the adaptation to help me through (more than enough). Highly recommended if you have a chance to see it.
Steven
A very enjoyable, if maybe overly sentimental film from one of the most, relatively, well known Japanese Golden Age directors. The plot is of a young man, fresh out of "high school" (but really undergraduate college as far as western audiences are concerned) who falls for a young itinerant actress, who, along with her brother, becomes involved with some shady and interesting characters which leads to conflict (and a memorable resolution.) This silent was originally planned to be a sound film, but due to budget restraints wasn't. I couldn't help but think during viewing that this was it's fatal flaw. A film this energetic (very Griffith like, with more cuts than I could count, the most Eisensteinian Japanese film I'd seen since Page of Madness) needed a musical counterpoint (and the overblown benshi narration on the video copy I viewed didn't last two minutes before my manual muting of it.) This film came after Gosho's highly successful (the first truly successful talkie in Japan) My Neighbor's Wife and Mine (which I'll watch soon enough), and also initiated a long series of Dancing Girl of Izu films (six to date) along with introducing the Junbungaku ("pure literature") movement in film adaptations. It also was a massive boon to the career of Tanaka Kinuyo, which makes it pretty important from any point of view. I did very much enjoy it (despite the problems mentioned earlier) and would consider it an equal to the single 30s era Naruse film I've seen (Wife! Be Like A Rose, and until I see otherwise I consider this director to begin hitting his stride in the 50s), but definitely lesser than Ozu, Yamanaka, and Shimizu. Watched with no subtitles, though I had a copy of the new book on Gosho, and McDonald's piece on the adaptation to help me through (more than enough). Highly recommended if you have a chance to see it.
Steven