Women of the Night
About Women of the Night
In postwar Osaka, widow Fusako Owada cannot pay for her baby's vaccinations, and the child dies. Businessman Kenzō Kuriyama makes her his mistress and uses her to hide opium, then takes up with her sister Natsuko. Fusako turns to prostitution and, after a brothel raid, says she will infect the men of Japan with syphilis. Natsuko, pregnant by Kuriyama and already infected, bears a stillborn child. Their teenage sister-in-law Kumiko is raped and pushed into the same trade. In the ruins of a bombed church, Fusako pulls Kumiko out of a fight with other prostitutes, and the two leave the district.
Cast & crew
More about Women of the Night
Kenji Mizoguchi directed the film for Shochiku, which also distributed it. Hisao Itoya produced it. Yoshikata Yoda wrote the script from a novel by Eijirō Hisaita. Kōhei Sugiyama photographed it, Kanji Sugawara edited it, and Hisato Ōsawa wrote the music. It opened in Japan on May 28, 1948. The original title is Yoru no onna-tachi.
Themes
Background
The story is set in Osaka in the early occupation, among women who turn to prostitution after the war. American censors at CIE passed the subject, and Japanese welfare groups publicly supported the shoot.
Making
Mizoguchi shot on location in Osaka, including a hospital ward for prostitutes. Kaneto Shindō later pointed to that ward scene in his 2001 documentary Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director.
Reviews
Mark Le Fanu, in Mizoguchi and Japan (2005), called it a minor film and one of Mizoguchi's most direct attacks on the way society treats women. Le Fanu, Donald Richie, and Dudley and Paul Andrew compared it with Italian neorealism. Kinema Junpo ranked it third among the ten best Japanese films of 1948.
Look
Kōhei Sugiyama shot the film on location in Osaka, including a hospital ward for prostitutes.
Music
Hisato Ōsawa wrote the score.
Notes
- Kinuyo Tanaka plays Fusako, Sanae Takasugi plays Natsuko, and Tomie Tsunoda plays Kumiko.
- Mitsuo Nagata is Kuriyama. Kumeko Urabe plays the brothel madam.
- Harry Slott of the occupation's Civil Information and Education Section endorsed the subject, and health and welfare groups backed the production.
- A scene was shot in an Osaka hospital ward used for prostitutes.
- Kinuyo Tanaka's Mainichi Film Award for Best Actress that year also covered Yasujirō Ozu's A Hen in the Wind.
Awards
- Mainichi Film Award for Best Actress — Kinuyo Tanaka (shared with A Hen in the Wind)
Scenes
- Fusako tells Natsuko, in the prison hospital, that she means to infect the men of Japan.
- Natsuko's baby is stillborn after the untreated infection.
- Fusako finds Kumiko being beaten in a bombed-out church and walks her out of the district.
Influenced by
- Eijirō Hisaita's novel
Also available
- Internet Archive (women-of-the-night)
