太鼓たゝいて笛吹いて / Taiko tataite fue fuite / Beat the Drum, Play the Flute [1958]

Release date: May 13th, 1958

Director: Toshio Sugie

Studio: Toho

Cast: Mariko Miyagi, Hiroshi Koizumi, Norihei Miki, Ichirō Arashima, Seizaburo Kawazu, Mitsuko Kusabue, Ikio Sawamura, Shunji Sakai, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Akihiko Hirata, Yasuo Nakata, Asami Kuji, Yoshifumi Tajima et al

Availability: No home media or streaming release, but prints extant; infrequent theater screenings.

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There is a vanishingly small amount of information on the internet about this movie, especially in terms of visual materials like posters or stills, but fortunately, kosho.or has wares if you have coin. I'm happy to say I can present some material in this post that has never been seen on the internet before. This will be a very text-heavy post.

I suspect that some of the trouble I've had in researching this film is because its title can be written in Japanese in two different ways: the one I've used in the post title, and 太鼓たたいて笛吹いて. The only difference is this little sucker:ゝ, which is used to indicate a repeated kana (in this case the two "ta"s in "tataite"). Another big issue is that this same title was used for a biographical drama about Fumiko Hayashi, first staged in 2014, which is far more popular than our nearly 70-year-old film.

Anyway, we'll start off with the cool stuff first: the pamphlet I got my hands on through kosho. Below you'll find full scans of the entire thing. Since the pamphlet isn't bound, I could get actual decent scans of it without fear of breaking the spine. You'll note that the back page features an ad for All About Marriage as well (IYKYK).

As we'll see shortly, everything about this movie was designed to evoke an Edo-period troupe of traveling actors, and as such, the pamphlet opens with an introduction written from the point of view and with the kind of language used by a troupe of actors. Here is a quick machine translation:

We are here today, the familiar Toho Star Troupe, who are always so grateful for your patronage. This time, at the request of our loyal supporters, we will be showing the film in spectacular detail on screens all over Japan, so we hope to invite everyone - young and old, men and women alike, from the houses in the fields to the top and bottom of the recently popular four- and five-story reinforced concrete apartment buildings - to come along and enjoy the show. We sincerely hope that you will all attend.

Now, if you'd like to pique your interest further, the troupe, led by Toshio Sugie and resident playwright Toshio Yasumi, also known for his work on A Story from Chikamatsu, features mariko Miyagi, along with Norihei Miki, Ichiro Arashima, Hiroshi Koizumi, Mitsuko Kusabue, Fubuki Koshiji, Yasuko Nakata, Masuda Keaton, Shunji Sakai, and Kamatari Fujiwara - a troupe that will have you laughing out loud just hearing about it. The troupe, sensing the scent of spring, is on a journey, or is the play the journey? [A] wandering tale of floating weeds in the water will soothe your souls with a play entitled Beat the Drum, Play the Flute.

First up is Mariko Miyagi, performing solo, leading the way with the taiko drums, then the music behind her, followed by the accompaniment of a female gidayu. While diligently caring for the troupe, she reveals the flower of love hidden deep within her heart, a girl's heart filled with tears and laughter, wondering whether it will bloom or not. Watching this, Norihei Miki and Ichiro Arashima, though timid, offer their support; not just in a shrewd manner. They're admirable in their way of telling her what to do, but everything they do is rambling and tearful - no laughing matter. 

We feel nostalgic when we hear the flute [calling] "Let's play the den-den taiko drum" ¹. Today, we travel around the country blowing the flute and beating the drum as a herald. After performing beautifully, we would appreciate a round of applause.

Next up the pamphlet gives us some explanatory text (kaisetsu), which is basically a short blurb selling you on the movie - these tend to be pretty hyperbolic, and are not meant as a synopsis, just a little excitement to get you to come see it.

This epic period drama, produced in Tohoscope and featuring regular cast members from Toho musicals as well as some of the finest film and theater talent of the day, is presented in full color with Eastmancolor. The film depicts the tenacious vitality and hilarious lives of traveling actors who move from town to town throughout the year, with an innocent young girl as the protagonist. Based on an original idea by Kazuo Kikuta, the screenplay was written by Hideo Oguni and directed by Toshio Sugie, who is enjoying success with The Capital of Love. The cast includes Mariko Miyagi [as] a handyman for a traveling troupe who does not only casual work but also props, costumes, and musicians, and is even a narrator for the gidayu musicians, all of whom are extremely active. 

Other performers include Norihei Miki and Ichiro Arashima as the pair Danshichi and Danhachi ², who are nominally actors but [get no good roles]. Hiroshi Koizumi plays the troupe's leading handsome man, Dannojo; Mitsuko Kusabue plays Otaki, the innkeeper who has an affair with Dannojo despite being married; Seizaburo Kawazu as a popular Edo kabuki actor; Akihiko Hirata as the handsome Shinnosuke and Asami Kuji as Otoku who runs off with him; Shunji Sakai as the troupe's female impersonator, Senshou; Masuda Keaton as the elderly Hikoemon; Yasuko Nakata as the innkeeper. More performers in the lively cast include Noriko Sengoku and Ikio Sawamura. The staff includes an original story by Kazuo Kikuta, screenplay by Hideo Oguni, cinematography by Taiichi Kankura and art by Shinobu Muraki, sound by Wataru Konuma, lighting by Mitsuo Kaneko, music by Yoshiyuki Kozu, and production by Shiro Horie.

Next up is the synopsis, which is a more elaborate than anything else available online. Strap in.

A group of traveling performers streamed into the Tabuhara Inn on the Nakasendo Trail, nestled between the Norikura and Komagatake mountain ranges. This was the Dankuro Ichikawa troupe, a traveling group of actors who migrate from place to place year-round. [They are] led by Dankuro, his wife Oshino and son Dannojo; Umezo Bando and his wife Otoku; Hikoemon Bando, Makuya Nakamura, Senshou Nakamura, Shinnosuke Nakamura, Ubei, Kisuke, and Takichi, as well as the pair of cut-rate actors ³ Danshichi and Danhachi and the assistant Okei. The troupe, made up of 15 members, is exceptionally impoverished and live hand-to-hand. Not only do they do the chores to feed everyone, but they also handle props, craftsmen, costumes, and even narrators and actors, literally beating drums and blowing flutes as they go.

Upon arriving at the post town, Danshichi, Danhachi, and Okei, carrying the traveling theater's drums, immediately circled the crowded side of the [town's] main inn. They were pushed back by the horsemen and laborers, but Okei stumbled and bumped into Okaji, the wife of Tanomo Osawa, a samurai from Bishu, and her servant Sanai, who were entering the "Tsuruya" inn. Okaji had lost her baby in a fire in this same town 20 years earlier, and had returned to the area in search of this daughter.

The troupe set up in a tent in a vacant lot in Niida.

The theater hall was sparsely populated. To make matters worse, handsome Shinnosuke has given up on the troupe and is plotting to steal it by having an affair with Otoku, while Makuya and Senshou are more interested in the innkeepers Okiyo and Otetsu than in performing on stage. Danshichi [...] laments his inability to find a single woman. He sets his sights on Okei, nicknamed "daikon no shippo" ⁴, and courts her. Danhachi, playing the same role, is not to be outdone, and begins a battle for her, playing an untimely "love match". However, she secretly has feelings for only one man: Dannojo. He, however, is in the midst of an affair with Otaki, the wife of the troupe's former tayu, Ubei, a situation that is causing her father, Dankuro, a great deal of headaches. The plan: Enraged by Dannojo's treatment, wholesaler Kichigoro waits for an opportunity to punish him.

Meanwhile, Okaji learns from Ubei that Dankuro's troupe also performed at the same inn 20 years ago during a fire, and Dankuro found a baby there at that time.

Okaji explains the purpose of her visit to Oshino, but Oshino greets her with [an unfriendly rejection.] ⁵ Feeling down, Okaji spots Okei working in the kitchen on her way home. Without identifying herself as her mother, she quickly hands Okei a hairpin and leaves.

Then, Dankuro collapses on stage. When he passes away, Oshino forces Dannojo and Okei to marry. Kichigoro and his men burst in to kill Dannojo, but are left dumbfounded by Oshino's actions. Moreover, Otoku and Shinnosuke are down on their luck, and Ubei says that the road is currently being traveled by popular Edo actor Gonjuro Arashi's troupe, so there's no way Dankuro's feeble troupe could possibly intrude.

Desperate to save the troupe from crisis, Okei invites Danshichi and Danhachi to visit Gonjuro inside, but the clerk, Kiyozo, won't allow them to see her at all. Okei, learning that Gonjuro has requested a massage, tricks anma Oshige and successfully gains entry to his room in disguise, but Gonjuro, with his keen intuition, sees through her. After hearing Okei's struggles, Gonjuro readily agrees to cooperate with the troupe as a memorial performance for Dankuro, a fellow performer dedicated to his art.

The theater, which had previously been hardly attended, is packed to capacity on that day. The act was Gonjuro's signature piece, "Shiobara Tasuke", and even Danshichi and Danhachi, the cut-rate actors, were highly praised, much to their delight. Gonjuro, completely taken with Okei's personality, suddenly proposed marriage to her. The rest of the troupe cheered with open arms, but Okei turned him down. Though he was her husband in name only, Okei truly loved Dannojo and felt sorry for him. Meanwhile, the ever-cheating Dannojo and Otaki were finally discovered by Kichigoro's men, and Dannojo fell to Kichigoro's sword. Summoning his last bit of strength, he made it to the tent and died in Okei's arms.

The troupe was finally at its end. Umezo, who knows Okei's background, urges her to return to her parents, but Okei proposes going to Edo with the others, sticking with Gonjuro, and making a name for herself. She even uses her precious hairpin as part of her travel expenses. Okei's enthusiasm inspires the group. Edo... Edo. The powerful footsteps of the troupe approach again today.

The first thing I want to note now that you're familiar with the characters is that the names of the troupe leaders are puns on popular actors of the time (actually sort of a bit before this time, but they were still known and respected): "Dankuro Ichikawa" is Danjuro Ichikawa, "Umezo Bando" is Tsumasaburo Bando, and "Gonjuro Arashi" is Kanjuro Arashi.

(I can explain that readily, but what I'm not clear on is why there are three separate guys named Nakamura in this and neither this synopsis nor anything else that I've read about the movie comments on it. It seems to me like they're kind of implied to be brothers, but I don't know for sure. I also don't know what relation Hikoemon Bando is to Umezo Bando. You know, that was a really detailed synopsis, but I still have questions.)

So now we know about the movie and we can lament the fact that we can't watch it. In terms of stuff to look at, aside from the pamphlet, we have two posters (the first is presented in two halves because long poster is long):

And a second one which is more or less a variation on the first.

Thanks to some screenings of this film, one from 2015 (top) and one from 2008 (bottom), we also have two stills. Both are pretty grainy, very small, and not that interesting, but they're really exciting to have considering how little else there is:

To talk briefly about Hirata's character Shinnosuke (because that's what we do here), it's very amusing to me that his role in this does literally seem to be "just there to look pretty". I assume he gets further characterization in the film itself, but the synopsis doesn't give anything besides the fact that 1. He is handsome and 2. He is up to no good. That one spicy picture is our sole visual evidence of his character. I've also read in other synopses that the troupe puts on a performance of Chushingura, which that means Hirata was in both two film adaptations of Chushingura and a movie where people perform Chushingura.

I'm surprised at the general lack of visual material related to the film, because it has actually been seen a fair amount of times within the past couple of decades - in addition to the Laputa screening, it played at the Jimbocho Theater as part of a Norihei Miki/Junzaburo Ban film festival in 2018 and at the same theater again as part of a Kazuo Kikuta festival in 2023. Which is great, because if it last screened three years ago, that means prints probably exist, so it can hypothetically be digitized and put out on DVD. Reception of the film seems pretty decent; largely just mild praise, but one Filmarks reviewer gave it "full marks" and said "I cried". Alright.

With a really strong cast, a capable Toho director, and several other prominent names with writing credits, this is certainly one I wish I could see somehow. Mariko Miyagi also appeared in my pet movie Rakugo nagaya wa hana zakari and sang on its soundtrack, performing a duet with Enoken in a song about eating radishes with your wife. Miyagi sang the theme song to this film as well, which you can listen to here. I think it's quite lovely.

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^{1 This is a reference to "Edo Lullaby", a traditional song. Read more about it here if you have a translator extension.}

^{2. Their names mean "Seven" and "Eight". "Dankuuro" is also a number pun; it replaces the kanji 十 (juu, "ten") in "Danjuro" with 九 (kyuu, "nine"). Re: names - there is some uncertainty about how to read some of the characters' names here; I've done my level best, but I wouldn't be able to tell you with full confidence how all of them are pronounced unless I watched the movie.}

^{3 This pamphlet repeatedly uses a phrase with no direct translation that I've had to sort of dance around: "uma no ashi"; it literally means "horse's legs" and it refers to actors who are so unpopular or untalented that they mostly play roles such as the back half of a fake horse.}

4 This is a bit rough to translate, but "daikon" basically means "ham actor" and "shippo" means "tail", so I'm guessing the meaning of Okei's nickname is something along the lines of "person who trails along behind mediocre actors". I was very close to just putting "roadie", but that felt a bit cheeky.

^{5 "Ken mo furoro" - idiomatic phrase that really doesn't have a direct translation.}

Rodan on CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc)!

Poor Rodan always seems to end up being the subject of some of my weirdest posts.

"What is this thing that kind of looks like a giant floppy disc?" You might ask. This is a CED, or Capacitance Electronic Disc, which I'm continually having to resist calling a "CED disc" because that's like saying "ATM machine". For a better summary of what it is and what it does, check out Techmoan's video, which includes a teardown of a CED machine (or three). For a full list of titles released to the U.S. market on CED, see here. For the U.K. market, see here. (Rodan is listed as "Uncommon", and was not released in the U.K.)

In short: it's a dead format several decades and millions of dollars in the making that turned out to be, as one YouTube commenter puts it, "a turkey". The actual video quality is not as bad as I expected - really no worse than some of the VHS tapes I've digitized - but the format has a quite unfortunate problem with stuttering and skipping, rendering a lot of movies flat-out unwatchable. More titles were issued on CED than you may think despite its short lifespan, and the list of U.S. titles includes both Godzilla 1984 and Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. My copy of Rodan is from 1983 and I got it dirt cheap; I have no idea if it's watchable, and don't have any plans to invest in a secondhand CED player to find out. It's mostly just a novelty to display in my room.

We owe Rodan's existence on CED to Vestron Video, who in 1983 put the pedal to the metal and decided to release the movie on every format simultaneously: VHS, Betamax, CED and LaserDisc. Rodan was also issued separately in 1965 on Super 8 as a black-and-white "digest" version, which you can watch here. It's most just an action cut and honestly isn't that bad if you just want to see monster stuff; it's a testament to how good Rodan was that it holds up even in such a condensed format. (Hirata's in the Super 8 version, but only a little, and for some reason looks even nerdier in black-and-white than he did in the original.)

Techmoan's video mentions CED in both the U.S. and the U.K., but having a kaiju movie on this format got me wondering if the format had any lifespan to speak of in the Japanese market. Japan is very good at keeping unusual media formats alive much longer than the rest of the world (cf. Minidisc), so I wanted to do some research to find out if any CEDs ever made it over there.

Short answer: Japan knew about CED but said nah.

Longer, more accurate answer: Japan did want it - or at least some people did - but was too busy at the time with a format war going on between VHD (Video High Density), LaserDisc, and Germany's obscure TeD (Television Electronic Disc), and although Hitachi was looking at commercializing the format for the Japanese market, it ultimately never entered domestic production, and only existed within the country as direct imports by collectors. I'm getting my information from JP Wikipedia, which unfortunately lacks a citation for this particular chapter of RCA's history, so I can't give you sources beyond what's written on the wiki. For a more personal, less objective opinion, I'll cite this blog post, whose author seems to have been entirely unfamiliar with CED. I wouldn't take one blog post as representative of the entire populace's knowledge of CED, though, and it's also worth pointing out that most people in the U.S. and U.K. - CED's actual target markets - probably have never heard of it either.

However, and more interestingly, I also turned up this article in Japanese, which is a pretty comprehensive look at what a CED was and how the format works. It's dated to 1982, so CED was still extant at the moment, although moribund; I don't know why somebody would have gone through the trouble of producing a Japanese-language guide to the format if there was not at least some interest in it within the country. This, also in Japanese, mentions CED as well, but only to make a brief note of its fleeting existence.

So that's some Rodan miscellany for you.

What In The World Was Italy Doing With "Saga of the Vagabonds"?

I swear to god someday I'm gonna turn up a poster for Secret of the Telegian that says "Thaddeo Nakamaru"

I'd like to thank this Letterboxd review for turning me on to this subject. Sometimes I read something online and immediately think "Oh yeah, that's gonna have a whole post written about it."

In 1959, Toho released Sengoku gunto-den, retitled for the English export market as Saga of the Vagabonds. The English title is fairly accurate to the original; a more literal translation could be "Sengoku Bandit Legend", or something like that. But I think Saga of the Vagabonds is just fine. However, when the film reached Italy in 1962, it was retitled Le scimitarre dei Mongoli, or "The Sword of the Mongols". 

So, first of all, yikes. Secondly: yikes. Third: I want to know more.

An Italian censorship visa was given to the film in March of 1962. (If you're wondering what a "censorship visa" is, it's this.) This preceded an official Italian theatrical release in August of that year. Thanks to a website archiving Italy's censorship decisions, we know that when the film was submitted to the censorship board, it was given approval. In practical terms, this means that the board viewed a dubbed version of the film and decided that it was fine for public viewing with no changes necessary. From other sources, I've been able to verify that the film was indeed shown in full, so nothing else was cut from the dub for reasons other than censorship, which is always nice.

Nino Cacace Cinematografica, the Italian distributor of the film - who I assume was responsible for the retitling - appears to only have had two other films credited to them: the Russian film Planet of Storms, which was retitled to The 7 Space Navigators, and the Yugoslavian film Signal Over the City, retitled Assault of the V Battalion. The company does not appear to have done anything other than import these three films.

Some of the lobby cards and posters are actually quite nice, but there's a few posters that I genuinely would not feel comfortable showing on here.

Although the film premiered in Palermo in 1962, it kinda hung around. My best source for the film's Italian half-life in the 1960s is a communist newspaper(!) that shows it having a robust existence as a third-run picture in May of 1963, playing at a total of five theaters: the Boito, the Corallo, the Doria, the Apollo and the Espero. I believe the Boito, Corallo, and Doria are still open, but the Apollo has long since been abandoned, and the Espero became a bingo hall. The newspaper also provides ratings for the films it advertises in its showtimes page; Scimitarre is rated "mediocre" - the meaning is the same in English as in Italian.

Credit to Elizabeth Graziani on fb

IMDb also lists a third Italian run of the film in 1965, which is more difficult to find specific information about. Turning to Google Books, however, did confirm that the film was being screened in the country in 1965. A book published in that year called Di riffe o di raffe (objectively a really good title, no matter what language you speak) by Italian screenwriter Giuseppe Marotta mentions the film briefly: "Damn it. A storm in a teacup; add to that the fact that I have to see a film for you, but the theaters are showing The Scimitars of the Mongols and The Titans Are Coming. What do I do, slit my throat or blow my brains out?"

I don't think Marotta cared for it.

It's pretty easy to conclude that this movie was marketed in Italy as a kind of Hercules-adjacent action picture of the type that were produced domestically on the cheap. Since the film evidently wasn't cut, though, all audiences would have had to do was actually go and see the movie to find out that the sword-and-sandals adventure with shirtless brawny men and damsels in distress vs. looming barbarian hordes they were promised was really just an average Japanese historical drama with an unusual amount of horses. This isn't specific to Italy; a lot of countries (including the U.S.) have historically not seemed to care much about marketing imported Japanese fantasy and historical films as anything other than exactly the same type of schlock they themselves were putting out.

You can spell out "Toshiro Mifune" but Toshio Sugie just gets called "T. Sugie"? Come on, there's only one letter of difference between "Toshiro" and "Toshio".

Actually, I'm going to stay on the topic of marketing for a bit longer, because it seems like the Mongolian connection went further than just an eye-catching title. I've turned up a synopsis for the film which I'm thinking might actually date back to its initial release - I have no way of proving that, but I think it might be a situation like how eiga.com and Kinenote will often use synopses that are from the first run of a film, even if said film is 70+ years old. Anyway, translated, it reads thusly:

"There is the hand of the great Akira Kurosawa, author of the script, in this compelling and well-shot war fresco. Protagonist Toshiro Mufune[sic], a Mongolian prince who turns into a sort of Robin Hood of the steppes, making raids to steal from the rich and redistribute the loot among the most humble populations. Released in Europe under the title 'Saga of the Vagabonds'."

So they really doubled down on that, huh? (Note, also, that this synopsis is different from what you'll find on the back of the DVD box; this is part of why I believe it may be original to the initial release.)

The film is still going by its Scimitarre title within Italy today but, as indicated by that Letterboxd review, it seems like people these days find it more baffling than anything else, given the total absence of either Mongolians or curved swords in the film. However, the Italian dub of the film is definitely still extant and available on DVD, although it seems to be out of stock in most places I’ve looked. And...

...yeah, that is absolutely, 100% a screenshot from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster on the back cover.

We're talking strictly about the Italian release here, but in the interest of completeness I'll mention that Saga of the Vagabonds did get exported to quite a few different overseas markets as well. In Spanish it was retitled Los Diablos Rojos, which is actually a more accurate translation of the roving band of thieves' moniker than what the English subtitles provide. This Spanish release is relevant to the Italian release, because the Italian DVD cover is just the Spanish poster with some extra art added and the Italian title slapped on.

The film also got a Cuban release under a direct Spanish translation of the English title and, my dear friends, I am delighted to inform you that the Cuban poster slaps.

It slaps so much, I actually decided to print it out and put it in a frame on my wall.

As a last, ephemeral footnote, I've also found a listing in a TV guide for the film from 1981, so it was shown on television in Italy at some point as well. I'm not sure if it was cut for television broadcast.

So, no real point to this post, I just found something that I thought was a true oddity and decided to explore it a little further. I'm very curious about that Italian dub - I'd really like to know if there's any dialogue where the characters refer to themselves or each other as Mongolians or if that was purely a marketing decision. If you have a copy of the dub or happen to have seen it, I'd appreciate it a lot if you dropped me a line.

この恋！五千万円 / Kono koi! gosanmanen / This Love Costs ¥5,000

Release date: January 3rd, 1954

Director: Kozo Saeki

Studio: Toho

Cast: Junzaburo Ban, Tony Tani, Aiko Mimasu, Akemi Negishi, Shinobu Asaji, Kingoro Yanagiya, Toshiko Tsubouchi, Akihiko Hirata, Norihei Miki et al

Availability: One confirmed television broadcast; no known theater screenings. No home media release.

____

It's Valentine's Day where I am in the U.S.! Let's talk about ❤️ love ❤️

...or, at least, a movie with "love" in the title.

When I look really quickly at this poster I sometimes think Tony Tani looks like Kenji Sahara here.

This movie has always stood out to me from the rest of Hirata's filmography because for some reason it is almost impossible to verify that he was in it. If you look at his Japanese Wikipedia page, it's right there with everything else, simple as. But Wikipedia is the only website that lists him as part of the cast. Kinenote? Nope. Allcinema? Nope. Filmarks? Nope. The almighty Miyata Gyaos Geocities site? Nope. Eiga.com? Nope. Hell, the actual posters from the film? Nope!

Eagle-eyed viewers may be able to see, however, that the poster does list an Onoda: Isamu Onoda, an extremely prolific lyricist/screenwriter/playwright who also acted a little. Because of his prevalence in the film industry, we have talked about his work a few times on here, but despite his surname he is apparently entirely unrelated to our man. By "acted a little" I do mean "a little": as an actor, he has just three credits to his name, including this film.

I think the reason for Hirata's role getting omitted so frequently is pretty simple: it was probably vanishingly small. His Wikipedia page lists his character's name as simply "Policeman" (keiji). Yes, I know "Keiji" is also a given name, but the kanji used to spell this character's name cannot be used to spell the name "Keiji". So, basically, I would imagine that he was "Cop #2" in the background of a random scene, or something like that.

Still from No Response from Car 33 for illustrative purposes.

To run quickly through some people who were in the movie before we move on: the film was directed by Kozo Saeki, who began his career in the silent era; written by Toshio Yasumi, who got his start at PCL as a screenwriter at around the same time; and adapted from an audio drama by the extremely prolific Kazuo Kikuta. The cast includes many people who we've seen frequently here, including comedians Tony Tani, Kingoro Yanagiya, and Norihei Miki. If I may get my amateur film scholar hat on, this particular period of Japanese cinema has always fascinated me because it feels like such a turning point for the industry as a whole: directors and writers who began their careers in the silent era and watched the birth of cinema itself were now working with a new generation of actors who had never grown up without it. It felt like film and older mediums such as stage plays and rakugo could coexist equally side-by-side, at least for a little while.

He's not even in the realm of having his name on posters for this one.

While we can't find Hirata on the film's Eirin (Japan's MPAA, basically) page, we can find out who had a vested interest in its production. The film was sponsored by Mie Prefectural Tourism Federation, Ise Shima National Park Association, Watarukano Tourism Association, Mie Kotsu Co., Ltd., and Kinki Nippon Railway.

I have confirmed one television broadcast of the film, which is always, always what we want to hear, because (modern) television broadcasts mean that someone, somewhere has digitized the film, and if someone has digitized it, then we don't need to worry about any physical prints rotting away in a warehouse somewhere. As per a defunct message board related to the kabuki bookstore Kobikido Shoten, the film was broadcast sometime in October 2000; unfortunately, I'm not sure on what station. The poster does not include their opinion on this film in specific, but lists it as part of what they call a solid lineup.

Speaking of screenings and broadcasts, I had a hunch that this was probably a "B" picture on a double bill due to its obscurity, and it turns out I was right: the film screened alongside Jirocho Sangokushi pt. 7, directed by Masahiro Makino.

Some promo stills exist:

Tony Tani and Akemi Negishi (hey, that's Noguchi's girl).

So, that's basically it. We can say that a digitized version of the movie may exist somewhere (if television network reorganizations over the years haven't led to it being lost at some point), but that's essentially it. I cannot find record of a single theater screening outside of its original run. I'm really curious about just how small Hirata's role in the film was, but unfortunately it seems like my chances of finding out are slim to none.

2 Years of guzareshirei...

I have been writing this blog for 2 years now. I don't think anybody reads it, but writing it makes me happy, so I'm going to continue to do so. To celebrate my anniversary, in addition to revamping the blog's theme - I feel like can never quite get it to look good, I have to settle for "halfway decent" - I've done fansubs for episode 55 of Taiyo ni Hoero!, which introduces Hirata's character Chief Nishiyama, one of his more well-known roles within Japan despite its near-total obscurity overseas. Apart from its broadcast on Hawaiian TV decades ago, this is the first time this episode has had English subtitles.

Check it out here. It'll be on archive.org until and unless people with say-so (or their lawyers) decide it shouldn't be. Also note that Toyoko Takechi, who has a guest role in this episode, is what I (somewhat embarrassingly) like to call a "triple crown" actress: she worked with Hirata and both of his siblings at various times.

As always, there will be more posts; I have plans for the coming year. And if anyone is reading this, thank you, sincerely. 

It's been an expensive two years. 

A very, very expensive two years.

復讐浄瑠璃坂 / Fukushu jorurizaka / Revenge at Joruri Slope pt. I + II [1955]

Release date: December 11th and December 21st, 1955

Director: Kyotaro Namiki & Buntaro Futagawa

Studio: Produced by Takarazuka, released by Toho

Cast: Kanjuro Arashi, Denjiro Okochi, Senjaku Nakamura, Ryotaro Oki, Chikage Ogi, Tamao Nakamura, Akihiko Hirata et al.

Availability: VHS releases. Infrequent theater screenings. No other home media or streaming availability.

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Today in the "I wish these were more accessible" department, let's look at a duology of films with a cast full of jidaigeki heavy-hitters that have somehow not had a decent home media release in the past 70 years. The first film was subtitled "Ambush at Onibushi Pass" [Onibushi-toge shougeki], the second was subtitled "Bloody Battle at Dawn" [Akatsuki no kessen].

These films are based on an actual historical event, which I'll only give the broad strokes of here since I'm not terribly familiar with it. An argument broke out during a memorial service for Tadamasa Okudaira, former lord of the Utsunomiya domain, on March 2nd, 1668, between members of separate branches of the Okudaira clan, supposedly in response to one of them being late to the service. One man was killed, and in response not only his killer but also his killer's family were punished, stripped of their stipends, and some sent into exile, including a 12-year-old boy. The boy, Genpachi, drew popular support, and some members of the Okudaira clan abandoned their posts and became ronin in service of revenge against the murderer. Ultimately, a group of 42 ronin raided the mansion where the murderer, Hayato Okudaira, was hiding. This occurred 30 years before the more famous Ako Roshi incident, popularized across the world as Chushingura or some variation on the title "47 Ronin".

The story was disseminated widely throughout the country (which is why it should probably be taken with a grain of salt) in various contemporary publications, and was also adapted into plays and other forms of storytelling, including, eventually, this set of two films by Toho that we're going to look at today.

Jorurizaka in 2017. Credit to Tokuzo Edomura.

Kyotaro Namiki also directed Kurama Tengu Goyo-to ihen, a favorite of mine which we looked at quite a while ago (it's the one with Dr. Serizawa in it). Aside from that, his career doesn't seem to have produced much in the way of hits; he worked with Kanjūrō Arashi's production company on many occasions as well as Shōzō Makino's, and was active from 1929 to 1960. The two Joruri Slope movies were actually co-directed by him and Buntaro Futakawa, brother of Eisuke Takizawa, who did another dear favorite of mine, Tetsuwan namida ari. Futakawa was 56 at the time, and retired after directing these two films, dying only nine years later. Namiki, on the other hand, lived to be 99, and wrote a little bit after retiring from filmmaking.

A few other names from the staff: the original work was written by Sanjugo Naoki, a man of many pen names who also knew Masahiro Makino, and it was adapted to the screen by Ryo Takei and Rokuhei Susukita, two people who do not have Wikipedia pages. Takei has writing credits for many things we're familiar with here, such as the two Tea-Picker's Song of Goodbye films and Wharf with the Weeping Girl. Susukita worked for over 50 years and wrote a whole hell of a lot of things, but these movies are the only ones he wrote for that are relevant to our interests.

Speaking of writing, there was also a manga adaptation of these films which I unfortunately can't find any pictures of besides a Mandarake listing.

Hirata plays a character named Kyubei Okudaira. He is on Hayato's side, and is one of Chikage Ogi's character Kikuno's three brothers. He gets killed in the second film. That is about all I can tell you. We have three press sheets featuring his character:

Hirata's character on the left-hand side, third from top

We love grainy photos here. Hirata's character is fourth from left in the row of portraits, recognizable by his chonmage and because Toho's in-house portrait artist/s was (were?) pretty consistent in the way they drew him.

I swear that at some point I saw a larger version of this image and could make out that Hirata is on the very bottom right.

Fortunately, though, we don't have to rely entirely on grainy pictures of press sheets. The last time a VHS tape of the first film was sold at auction, the seller decided to take screencaps of nearly the entire movie and include them in the auction photos, so we do have some actual stills featuring Kyubei as well. (The full listing in case for some odd reason you have a desire to see other parts of the movie.)

As for screenings, both of these films have played, like every other Japanese movie ever made, at Laputa Asagaya. They have also been aired on pay-per-view TV at least once in 2021. I don't have a lot to go off of in terms of critical reception, but one reviewer felt very strongly that bad character writing made the second part take a sharp downturn and essentially ruined the rest of the film. Another reviewer calls the films "fairly entertaining".

That, unfortunately, is kind of it. It's surprising there isn't more out there about these, considering that they do have a physical release. The tapes seem to be quite rare, but rest assured that if they ever do come up for auction again, no matter how expensive, I'll be getting my hands on them.

Brand New English Subtitles for Young Season [Wakai kisetsu / 若い季節] !

I am, as ever, utterly delighted to bring you brand new English subtitles for a movie featuring Akihiko Hirata that had not previously been available with subtitles. As with many things I talk about on here, there's really no reason why this shouldn't have been subbed a long time ago - it's a funny, charming, well-made film that I think will appeal to a wide audience. In this post I'm not going to spend much (if any) time on the plot, I just want to provide some supplemental information about the film itself.

Watch it for yourself here. I'll be linking back to this page on archive.org as well, so if you're coming from there: hi, hello, yes I am like this all the time.

The first thing to note about Young Season is that it features every member of the band Crazy Cats but is not itself technically A Crazy Cats Movie. At this point, the band was still kind of getting the hang of doing movies as an ensemble, so you'll notice that compared to much grander features like Mexican Free-For-All, the bandmembers are all just kind of... there. They are not in particularly important roles, they just happen to be part of the cast. Kengo Furusawa directs; he would later become prolific within the Crazy Cats series, but did a lot of other features for Toho as well.

The film version of Young Season we're looking at today was based on a popular NHK television drama by the same name, which ran from 1961 to 1964. It was a musical workplace comedy, one of those wonderful genre hybrids that either no one bothers to make anymore or, if they do, they suck. The cast is largely the same as in the film, although Kiyoshi Atsumi had a role in the TV drama but was absent from the film. The crew is much the same as well, with Isamu Onoda having an "original work" credit as well as a co-screenwriting credit. (We have talked about this Onoda on here before; he is of no relation to one Akihiko Onoda.) Hirata did not appear in the TV version, which I believe was due to his exclusive contract at the time. There was also a sequel film produced two years later.

The theme song (which is sung by a chorus in the film version) was originally sung by The Peanuts; listen to it here.

Some of the cast of the Young Season TV series.

According to the film's Wikipedia page, it was obscure for a long time after its initial release until it was aired on television in 1986 and subsequently released on laserdisc. It was then issued on DVD twice in 2008 and 2014; I own the 2014 edition, which is where I sourced the file that I subtitled from. Young Season was released simultaneously with Yamaneko sakusen (English title "Operation Enemy Fort"), another film in which Hirata had a very small role (and a bad fake beard).

As for its stateside release, Hawaiian theaters got the first movie with English subtitles in November of 1964 (surprisingly late, considering how popular Kyu Sakamoto was; I'm betting there was an earlier release I'm not aware of). The first film had another theater run in January of 1965, and its sequel ran a few months later in July. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser describes the first film as "a musical comedy with Kyu Sakamoto, Hitoshi Ueki and Reiko Dan heading an all-star cast of funsters." (Interestingly, different theaters seemed to flip-flop on advertising the film as starring Kyu Sakamoto and Hitoshi Ueki or Kyu Sakamoto and Hajime Hana.) I have not been able to find English-language reviews of the film from its original run.

More of the cast from the TV drama who also appear in the films.

Something that I can also do in this post is talk about translation specifics that I couldn't convey within the subtitles. Since I'm not a fluent speaker, a lot of my fansubbing work just comes down to doing a whole hell of a lot of research. One fun ("fun") thing I discovered was that a line I was having a ridiculous amount of trouble with was not difficult because I wasn't hearing it right - I was hearing it fine, it was just actual, literal made-up nonsense words; kind of a Showa-era meme. (My translation of these lines had to be very indirect in order to convey the meaning of the dialogue.) There are a few other "localizations" that I had to do as well, most of which is too insignificant to really warrant mention¹ - for example, Japanese has the phrase "sly as a monkey" whereas we have "sly as a fox", but I went with "sly as a fox" because I felt like it sounded more familiar to an English-speaking audience.

I also had no real way to convey that a lot of the character names in this movie play off of their actors' real names. For example, Ichiro Arashima plays a character named "Arima"; Shinchou Kokontei III plays a character named Chota Shindo, nicknamed "Shinchou"; and Jerry Fujio plays a character named, uh, Fujio Fujio². Usually with these Crazy Cats movies, the bandmembers' characters get names that relate to their real ones (so Hitoshi Ueki can play "Ueda", Kei Tani can play "Tanida", etc), but here, the writers didn't bother. They're just Ueki, Hana, Inuzuka, and so on.

This leads us into talking about Hirata's character Minamikawa, who is actually an exception to the name wordplay; "Minamikawa" has nothing to do with his real name either phonetically or with the kanji used to write it. If I had to guess, I’d say that roles for the “guest stars” (Shinchou, Fujio, etc) were probably written with those specific actors in mind, and the rest of the roles were just filled out with Toho’s usual cast of players.

Minamikawa fits exactly the kind of smug, arrogant so-and-so archetype that Hirata was so good at playing. It's implied that Minamikawa is taking care of the financial aspect of the scam Tres Bien is trying to pull, but otherwise he doesn't have that much of a role in the proceedings. He doesn't really do anything solo, he's usually part of a group of people scheming and plotting in a room together. We do, at one point, get to see Jerry Fujio go undercover on an intel-gathering operation targeting Minamikawa and the other saboteurs which for some reason involves Fujio giving him a massage and lighting his cigarettes for him. (IMHO, Fujio Fujio deserved everything he got for that godawful "Indian Twist" song.)

He smokes A LOT in this movie, even for him. Also I guess Minamikawa is married.

Yeah okay I just liked these shots

The last we see of Minamikawa, he and a Tres Bien executive he was colluding with are getting the hell out of Dodge under threat of physical violence from Kenji Sahara. Minamikawa does not appear in the sequel.

I've never worked an office job, is this typical?

I'll wrap up by saying that I really had a lot of fun subtitling this one, and I'm very heartened to see so many Crazy Cats and Crazy Cats-adjacent movies getting subtitled these past few years. There is, of course, also the sequel to Young Season, which does not currently have subtitles; I may not be the person for that job, but I do hope it gets done someday. In the meantime I'm sure I'll pick up other projects along the way but for now I need to get some sleep. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

translation: "[squirming]"

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Footnotes:

1 One that I do want to explain is the "Liquistick"/"ick" pun. In the original Japanese, the proposed name is "Ekibeni", which sounds like "Ekiben", a boxed lunch you can buy at train stations. ("Ekiben" is also slang for having sex standing up, but I don't believe the term was in usage in that capacity ca. 1962.) Other puns I considered include "Liquistick"/"Bisquick" to retain the sense that the pun was referring to a food item, but I was not sure everybody watching the movie would know what Bisquick is.

2 Written 藤尾富士男. I assume nobody has this name in real life, but if they do, my condolences.