Category Archives: Japan

Noh: Hajitomi (半蔀)、Koya Monogurui (高野物狂)

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  • Noh: 半蔀 (Hajitomi)、高野物狂 (Koya Monogurui)

7/13/25 (Sun), Tokyo

I hadn’t seen either of these pieces, so I figured it was a good chance to catch something new. I accidentally bought four tickets rather than two and couldn’t find anyone interested in joining us, including a friend living a two-minute walk from the theater. I guess I’ll look on it as a donation to the Yarai Noh Theater group. 

Hajitomi: This is based on the famous “Yugao” chapter of the Tales of Genji. I read Arthur Waley’s moving translation of this chapter the night before as preparation. The title of the show refers to the lattice shutters that the women were slyly peeking through when Genji spotted them. The show is not a reworking of that story, using the character of Yugao instead for its own purposes. Continue reading →

Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (母と暮らせば , film), The Face of Jizo (父と暮らせば , film)

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  • 母と暮らせば (Nagasaki: Memories of My Son, film), 7/26/25 (Sat)
  • 父と暮らせば (The Face of Jizo, film), 7/27/25 (Sun)

Having seen the stage versions of these shows in the past days, I was eager to catch the films. The Japanese titles, literally Living With Mother and Living With Father, make the connection clearer; they are set respectively in Nagasaki and Hiroshima just after the war and are considered part of a trilogy alongside Okinawa-based Army on a Tree.

Yamada Yoji’s 2015 Nagasaki actually preceded the stage show and I suppose is considered the original. However, it takes the material in a direction that veers significantly from Inoue’s vision as seen in the other two parts of the trilogy. Continue reading →

Living With Mother (母と暮らせば), Soldiers in a Tree (木の上の軍隊)

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  • 母と暮らせば (Living With Mother), 7/25/25 (Fri)
  • 木の上の軍隊 (Soldiers in a Tree), 7/25/25 (Fri)

Set respectively in Nagasaki and Okinawa, these are the final two dramas in what is considered Inoue Hisashi’s trilogy of post-war life along with Hiroshima-based Living With Father (aka The Face of Jizo), which I saw on stage last week. Today’s shows are archive films of the stage productions, shown as a special tribute on the 80th anniversary of the war’s end. The description “trilogy” is deceptive: while Inoue did plan the shows, his hugely popular Father of 1994, which became his signature piece, was the only one he actually wrote. The other two were picked up after his death based on his notes. Continue reading →

The Face of Jizo (父と暮らせば)

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    • 父と暮らせば (The Face of Jizo)

    7/16/25 (Wed)

    The classic piece by the prolific Inoue Hisashi about a woman in post-war Hiroshima with a bad case of survivor’s guilt who is visited by the ghost of her father. The immensely popular show, known in English as The Face of Jizo or more literally (and better) as Living With Father, has been revived at least 17 times in Japan in addition to numerous foreign-language productions (including a Japanese reading this month in NY) since its premiere in 1994 by Komatsu-za. That was directed as today by Uyama Hitoshi, so I assume this more or less follows the original staging. It’s being presented just a month before the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing. It is the first in Inoue’s trilogy of post-war life along with Okinawa-based Army on a Tree, whose film version has just been released, and Nagasaki-based Living With Mother.

    We are in Hiroshima in 1948. A librarian who survived the atomic bombing through a quirk of fate is struggling with her memory of the horrors that she saw and her guilt for having lived despite the gruesome death of her friends and family. As she runs into the house terrified on a lightning-filled night, her father emerges from the closet to comfort her. We quickly gather that this is in fact the ghost of her father, who died in the bombing three years earlier.

    Continue reading →

    Army on a Tree (木の上の軍隊)

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    • 木の上の軍隊 (Army on a Tree)

    7/7/25 (Mon)

    Two soldiers in wartime Okinawa remain hiding in a tree Onoda-like for two years after the war without knowing that the hostilities have ended – the setting would seem ridiculous if it weren’t based on a true story. Okinawa-born Taira Kazuhiro’s film is adapted from a highly regarded stage play that the prolific Inoue Hisashi had been preparing to write at his death (only the title, copious notes, and reportedly two lines of dialogue remained). Having learned about the story in a newspaper article, Inoue had been working on it since 1985 and had finally scheduled a production in 2010, but passed away just three months before the show was to debut. Veteran Kuriyama Tamiya was tapped to take over the script, and the production, staged by Inoue’s troupe Komatsu-za, was finally staged in 2013. It has taken yet another dozen years for that to reach the screen.

    It helps to know that Okinawans experienced a significantly different war than the rest of Japan, a brutal campaign in which their unspeakably callous treatment by mainland Japanese made them wonder which side was the real enemy. The Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, do not share the same history and culture as the rest of Japan, analogous to Hawaii vs. the continental US, and there is a strong sense that they were essentially fed to the wolves, as amply recorded in museums in the prefecture. The film was significantly expanded from the three-character stage show.

    Continue reading →

    Kokuho (国宝)

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    • 国宝 (Kokuho)

    6/21/25 (Sat)

    Lee Sang-il’s story of a Kabuki rivalry, based on a best-selling novel, examines a world where blood is thicker than talent, as two onnagata (female-role specialists) vie for National Treasure (kokuho) status: one has the bloodline but not the innate skill, the other is the opposite. Some critics have seen similarities with the Chinese opera world in Farewell, My Concubine, but that’s only in the use of onnagata, which is just skin deep. The film has proven an unlikely success despite its three-hour running time, drawing in nearly 4 million viewers and over ¥5 billion (figures updated as of mid July).（Update: As of November 25, those figures have grown to 12.3 million viewers and nearly ¥17.4bn in revenues, making it Japan’s highest-grossing live action film ever. That’s before its debut in the US and other major markets.) 

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    A Geisha’s Tale (女は二度生まれる)

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    • 女は二度生まれる (A Geisha’s Tale)

    6/13/25 (Fri)

    A light-hearted dramedy of 1961 by Kawashima Yuzo. The English title is deceptive, as “geisha” here is clearly a euphemism for prostitute. (The film is also known as Women Are Born Twice, a direct translation of the Japanese title, which makes sense in the film’s final seconds. A better rendering might be “A Woman Reborn”.) The main character doesn’t play shamisen, dance or sing, so she’s not remotely a geisha. She is simply a kimono-clad hostess who entertains customers by chatting, pouring their drinks and feeding their egos, then sleeping with them afterwards. And apparently enjoying it. The Happy Hooker is probably closer to the point. Continue reading →

    The Mad Fox (恋や恋やすな恋)

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    • 恋や恋やすな恋 (The Mad Fox)

    6/6/25 (Fri), home, 7:15-9:00p

    Uchida’s 1962 surrealistic film is based on the popular Bunraku and Kabuki classic commonly known as Kuzunoha. The entire movie is as shape shifting as the foxes within it, moving from semi-realistic to otherworldly to a Kabuki stage. Continue reading →

    Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji (血槍富士)

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    • 血槍富士 (Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji)

    6/3/25 (Tues)

    Uchida Tomu’s 1955 film was his comeback after a 13-year absence from Japanese film. He had reportedly raised suspicions in the movie world for his long stay in China and reported enthusiasm for the Mao regime (despite his active support for the Japanese military during the war – his convictions don’t seem very deep). But he had some big hitters behind him, including explicit support in the opening credits from superstar directors Ozu Yasujiro, Shimizu Hiroshi, and Ito Daisuke (the poster also throws in Mizoguchi Kenji). He supposedly promised to behave in crafting this film, and the content is largely innocuous on the surface. It is based on a popular silent film, Dochu Hiki (now lost), by his mentor Inoue Kintaro. The two leads in that film were happily given roles in the remake: Tsukigata Ryunosuke in a great turn as the suspected thief and Watanabe Atsushi as an official in the comic tea party scene.

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    Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka (浪花の恋の物語)

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    • 浪花の恋の物語 (Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka)

    5/27/25 (Tues)

    Uchida Tomu’s 1959 film, based loosely on playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 18th-century puppet classic Courier from Hell (冥途の飛脚 ). The English title is misleading: it is not a love affair involving Chikamatsu, but a play devised by Chikamatsu about a doomed love affair in Osaka. (The Japanese title is a more straightforward The Story of a Naniwa Love Affair, using the old name for the city.) As with the similarly title-challenged The Chikamatsu Story, the marketers seem to think that the Chikamatsu name is going to be an attraction for foreigners, who in fact are unlikely to have heard the name at all. The film needs better marketers.

    Continue reading →