Theatre Play
Famed onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki) Tamasaburo Bando follows up on the success of his directorial debut, Gekashitsu, with this soft-focused romance about love and obligation, based on a novel by Kafu Nagai. Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant's family. The film opens with her working in a high-class brothel abutting Tokyo Bay. Though she has passionate affection for a drug wholesaler, whom she loves as well, Kaede is swamped with not only debts to the bordello and family obligations -- she is expected to support her parents and her sister -- but also guilt over losing her child. This pain is only increased when Kaede learns that her daughter is being abused. She does the only thing she can: She buys back her child by signing on at the brothel for a longer stint.
Production Supervisor
An Inn at Osaka, rarely seen outside Japan, follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life. Notable for its exquisite framing and cinematography, An Inn at Osaka allows its complicated plotlines to disappear behind the minutiae of penury and humiliation that Mito and others suffer during the post-war economic and social reconstruction.
Screenplay
야심만만한 젊은 노(能) 배우 기타하치는 여행 도중 유명한 배우인 소잔에 대한 이야기를 듣는다. 소잔에 대한 궁금증이 생긴 기타하치는 직접 그를 만나지만 그에게 큰 모욕을 주고 만다. 이 일로 기타하치는 스승이자 양아버지인 겐자부로와 사이가 나빠지고, 그로부터 2년이 지난 뒤 소잔의 딸에 대한 안타까운 소식을 듣는다.
