Street of Shame

[박대선]

Street of Shame

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Street of ShameDirected byWritten byProduced byCinematographyEdited byMusic byProduction
companyRelease dateRunning timeCountryLanguage

Theatrical release poster

Kenji Mizoguchi

• Masashige Narusawa (writer)
• Yoshiko Shibaki (novel)

Masaichi Nagata (producer)

Kazuo Miyagawa

Kanji Sugawara

Toshiro Mayuzumi

Daiei Film

March 18, 1956

87 minutes

Japan

Japanese

Street of Shame (赤線地帯, Akasen Chitai, "Red-light District") is a 1956 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It is the personal tales of several Japanese women of different backgrounds who work together in a brothel. It was Mizoguchi's last film.

The film is based on the novel Susaki no Onna by Yoshiko Shibaki. In July 2018, it was selected to be screened in the Venice Classics section at the 75th Venice International Film Festival.[1]

Plot[edit]

Street of Shame revolves around the lives of 5 female prostitutes working at Dreamland, a licensed brothel owned by the Tayas in a red-light district near the Sensōji Temple in Tokyo's Yoshiwara district, while the Diet reconsiders a ban on prostitution. 1) Yasumi is a young woman trying to bail her father out of jail for corruption and Dreamland's top owner. Her long-term client, Mr. Aoki, a married man and a modest businessman, agrees to pay off all of her debts in the belief that she will elope with him, going so far as to embezzle money. When Aoki confronts Yasumi and discovers that she had deceived him into thinking she would marry him, his disillusionment leads to a tussle where he nearly kills her. 2) Mickey is a vivacious young woman with Western tendencies who spends money without care. When her father arrives from Kobe with news of her mother's death and attempts to persuade her to quit her job for the sake of the entire family, she castigates him for his hedonism when her mother was alive and throws him out. 3) Hanae is a woman struggling to provide for her husband (who has suicidal tendencies) and infant. Ultimately, they are evicted by their landlord. 4) Yorie is an elderly woman with a man she wants to marry but cannot because she owes the Tayas a significant amount of money. When the courts decide that the debts Yorie owes to the Tayas are null and void, she leaves Dreamland to marry the man, but soon returns after being deceived because the man only wanted to exploit her for cheap labor. 5) Yumeko is an elderly widow trying to raise her son, who is currently working in Tokyo, but avoids meeting him out of embarrassment. When they meet, her son decries her as a "dirty whore" and disowns her. On the same night that Yasumi is attacked, Yumeko goes insane and is taken away. Yasumi recovers and buys the fabric and futon business next door to the brothel, which becomes her first customer. Ultimately, the anti-prostitution bill fails to pass. Some time later, the brothel's young maid, Shizuko, debuts. The film ends with Shizuko timidly beckoning men to enter the brothel as she faces a life of prostitution.

Cast[edit]

ActorRole

Machiko Kyō	Miki
Ayako Wakao	Yasumi
Aiko Mimasu	Yumeko
Michiyo Kogure	Hanae
Kumeko Urabe	Otane
Yasuko Kawakami	Shizuko
Hiroko Machida	Yorie
Eitarō Shindō	Kurazō Taya
Sadako Sawamura	Tatsuko Taya
Toranosuke Ogawa	Mickey's father
Bontarō Miyake	nightwatch
Daisuke Katō	president of Brothel Owners' Association
Kenji Sahara

The production designer was Hiroshi Mizutani.

Legacy[edit]

Red Light District: Gonna Get Out (1974) directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro is a remake of this film.[2]

References[edit]

1. ^ "Biennale Cinema 2018, Venice Classics". labiennale.org. 13 July 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
2. ^ Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books: Asian Cult Cinema Publications. p. 344. ISBN 1-889288-52-7.

External links[edit]

• Street of Shame at IMDb
• 赤線地帯 at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)
• The Criterion Collection: Street of Shame

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Films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi

• The Morning Sun Shines (1929)
• Tokyo March (1929)
• Tōjin Okichi (1930)
• The Water Magician (1933)
• Aizō Tōge (1934)
• Orizuru Osen (1935)
• Osaka Elegy (1936)
• Sisters of the Gion (1936)
• The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939)
• The 47 Ronin (1941)
• Utamaro and His Five Women (1946)
• The Love of Sumako the Actress (1947)
• Flame of My Love (1949)
• Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950)
• Miss Oyu (1951)
• The Lady of Musashino (1951)
• The Life of Oharu (1952)
• Ugetsu (1953)
• A Geisha (1953)
• Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
• The Woman in the Rumor (1954)
• The Crucified Lovers (1954)
• Princess Yang Kwei-Fei (1955)
• Tales of the Taira Clan (1955)
• Street of Shame (1956)

This article related to a Japanese film of the 1950s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Categories: 

• 1956 films
• 1956 drama films
• Japanese drama films
• Japanese black-and-white films
• 1950s Japanese-language films
• Films about prostitution in Japan
• Films set in Tokyo
• Films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
• Films produced by Masaichi Nagata
• Daiei Film films
• 1950s Japanese films
• 1950s Japanese film stubs