Souls on the Road
About Souls on the Road
Violinist Koichiro (Denmei Suzuki), thrown out of a Tokyo orchestra after he attacks a critic, walks toward his father's mountain house with his wife Yoko (Haruko Sawamura) and daughter Fumiko. Two freed convicts, Tsurikichi and Kamezo, set out to rob them, find they have nothing, and share bread. Koichiro's father, Sugino (Kaoru Osanai), will not let them in during a snowstorm. In a nearby villa the butler takes the convicts in. The family shelters in a hay store. The child dies of the cold. The next day Koichiro is found frozen in the snow.
Cast & crew
More about Souls on the Road
Minoru Murata directed and plays Taro, a woodcutter. Kiyohiko Ushihara wrote the screenplay from Wilhelm Schmidtbonn's Children on the Street and Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, and he also plays the villa's butler. Kaoru Osanai produced. Hamataro Oda and Bunjiro Mizutani photographed it. Released in Japan on 8 April 1921. The English Wikipedia gives 80 minutes. Wikidata lists 91.
Themes
Background
A Japanese feature of April 1921, joining a prodigal-son walk home to a story of two convicts, drawn from Gorky and from Schmidtbonn.
Reviews
Mark Cousins called it the first landmark film in Japanese history.
Preservation
A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Yuriko Hanabusa plays Reijo, the daughter at the villa.
- Minami Komei plays Tsurikichi. Shigeru Tsutamura plays Kamezo.
- Wikidata's running time is 91 minutes.
- Professor Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano has noted that Hanabusa's performance copies details of Mary Pickford's characters.
Scenes
- The convicts, finding the family has nothing, share their bread.
- Sugino opens the hay store and finds his granddaughter dead of the cold.
Influenced by
- Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths
- Wilhelm Schmidtbonn's Children on the Street
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Rojo no Reikon (1921).webm)