The Golden Flower
About The Golden Flower
A village festival is on, and Dangobei, a kagura dancer invited from Tanokyu, entertains the crowd with a plump woman's mask and a twisted man's mask. He takes his fee and starts home. Night puts him on the wrong path, into Kuragari Pass, while his mother waits in Tanokyu. A giant snake blocks the dark road. Dangobei claps on a kagura mask. Asked his name, he says Dangobei of Tanokyu; the snake hears "tanuki" and tells him to change shape, so he switches masks until the snake lets him go. He lights a cigarette. The snake hates nicotine and asks what Dangobei hates. He says money, because it sets parents, children, and siblings against one another. He runs back and tells the village. The villagers go out and kill the snake with nicotine. Dying, it throws koban, oval gold coins, at him.
Cast & crew
More about The Golden Flower
Noburō Ōfuji's chiyogami short Kogane no hana (こがねの花) follows the rakugo story Tanokyu. Tokyo Cinema Shokai distributed it. The Home Ministry censorship numbers are D2888 (March 12, 1929) and F4371 (April 22, 1931). Eiga Kyōiku introduced it, with photos, in February 1929. Japanese Animated Film Classics times the print at 17 minutes and 16 frames per second.
Themes
Technique
Cut from chiyogami paper and photographed at 16 frames per second.
Preservation
Japanese Animated Film Classics traces the digital copy from a Ministry of Education 35mm nitrate positive to a National Film Center internegative and a new 35mm positive. The print has no end title.
Notes
- A title calls Dangobei a kagura performer summoned from Tanokyu for the village festival.
- The snake mishears Tanokyu as tanuki, a raccoon dog, and demands that Dangobei change shape.
- The dying snake's line, in a title, is that it will pay him back for teaching humans the nicotine it hates, and throws the gold he claims to fear.
- In 1929 Ōfuji opened a studio in Uehara, Shibuya, which became his workshop.
- The digital copy comes from a 35mm nitrate positive that belonged to the Ministry of Education, then a National Film Center internegative. The print has no end title.
Awards
- Outstanding Movie Award, Ministry of Education (1931), the first of those awards. The certificate and medal were among Ōfuji's papers.
Scenes
- Dangobei swaps kagura masks until the snake, which thinks he is a tanuki, lets him pass.
- He lights a cigarette and the snake recoils from the nicotine.
- The villagers' nicotine kills the snake, which hurls gold coins at him.
Also available
- Japanese Animated Film Classics (work 42165)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Golden Flower (1929).webm)
Quotes
Take the money you fear!" — the dying snake, throwing koban
