The Color Print of Edo is a 1939 black and white Japanese silent film with benshi accompaniment directed by Kazuo Mori. It is a cheerful period drama, sprinkled with comical scenes and tells the story of a loyal and handsome Edo period servant who fights to help his older brother marry the woman he loves. The star of this film Utaemono Ichikawa gained enormous popularity for his portrayal of a cheerful and chivalrous man.
A quintessential example of the period "ghost cat" (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, this was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko Kinema between 1937-40 featuring Japan's first scream queen, Sumiko Suzuki. Here she plays Mitsue, the possessive onna-kabuki actress betrothed to apprentice shamisen player Seijiro. When one day Okiyo, a beautiful young girl of samurai class, is led to Seijiro's house by his lost cat Kuro, she becomes besotted with him. Dark jealous passions are invoked in Mitsue, which are intensified when Seijiro gifts Okiyo his precious shamisen. The cat is the first to suffer at the end of Mitsue's hairpin, but returns from the grave to assist Okiyo's younger sister Onui avenge her sister's murder.
오사카에서 전화교환원으로 일하는 아야코는 교환대에서 훤히 보이는 사무실에서 근무중인 연인에게 사적인 전화를 걸기도 하는 대담한 아가씨다. 그러나 아야코는 아버지의 빚 때문에 결국 사장의 정부가 되는데, 게다가 학비를 보태달라는 오빠 때문에 이번엔 사장의 친구 신도에게 접근한다. 그러나 신도는 아야코를 꽃뱀이라 신고하고, 그녀는 경찰에 연행된다. 가족들을 위해 그런 선택을 했던 아야코였으나, 가족들은 그녀를 냉정하게 외면한다. 미조구치의 작가적 성숙을 알린 작품으로 평가받는다. 오랫동안 콤비를 이루는 극작가 요다 요시카타와 처음 함께 작업한 작품.
Kenji Mizoguchi is credited as “supervisor” on this rare Japanese genre film, which stars the stunning Isuzu Yamada (Osaka Elegy, Throne of Blood) as a professional criminal, part con woman and part martial artist, who falls in love with a young man from the straight world.
His mother abandoned him as a child, so he had no choice but to live outside society. Even so, he grows up determined to reunite with her. Worried that she might be living in misery, he saves his money to help, only to find that she has married into wealth and social position and has no intention of seeing her outcast Yakuza son...
