Sansho Dayu & Gion Bayashi

Average rating

(80%)

Starring:	Kinuyo Tanaka \| Michiyo Kogure \| Yoshiaki Hanayagi \| Ayako Wakao
Director:	Kenji Mizoguchi
Run time:	310 mins
Genres:	World Cinema
Languages:	Japanese
Subtitles:	English
Released:	November 19, 2007
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Based on an ancient legend, as recounted by celebrated author Mori Ogai (in his short story of the same name, written in 1915), and adapted by Japanese director Mizoguchi Kenji, Sansho Dayu is both distinctively Japanese and as deeply affecting as a Greek tragedy. Described in its opening title as "one of the oldest and most tragic in Japan's history", Mizoguchi depicts an unforgettably sad story of social injustice, family love, personal sacrifice, and fateful tragedy.

Set in Heian era (11th century) Japan, it follows an aristocratic woman, Tamaki (played by Tanaka Kinuyo, who also stars in Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari), and her two children, Zushio (Hanayagi Yoshiaki) and Anju (Kagawa Kyoko), who are separated by feudal tyranny from Tamaki's husband.

Highest rated reviews

8 out of 8 people found the following review helpful:

inferior melodrama superior photography

itstinks from , 29th February, 2008

I'm sorry but I just do not see how Yoshida can be seen as anyway close to Kurosawa as a top class director especially not at an international level. His films tend to be melodramatic tosh and though no doubt these can be very popular within the country most other countries have enough of there own tosh to watch and enjoy. So the story of a wellbred family ending up in slavery and suffering hardship and tragedy only slight varies in inflection by being set in Japan rather than a Catherine Cookson story set in Yprkshire

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2 out of 2 people found the following review helpful:

One of cinema's all-time masters

Savage from from London, England, 13th December, 2007

Anyone who claims to be interested in cinema ought to watch as many Mizoguchi films as they can, and 'Sansho the Bailiff' is many people's candidate for his masterpiece. It is a sublime, heart-breaking tragedy of great power, but it is also quite familiar, so it may be worth taking the trouble to say a few words about the other film on this set, 'Gion Festival music'. This starts off in territory very similar to 'Memoirs of a Geisha', with a young girl applying to become a trainee Geisha after her mother dies and her uncle demands that she sleep with him. From there, however, Mizoguchi spins off into a characteristic disquisition on women's place in society, considering how (little) things have changed in the post-war era: while the men (all presented as drunk, vicious and/or useless) are now thrusting capitalists, standing or falling by their business acumen, the women have become nothing more than commodities, to be handed around at the men's whim. The narrative and characerisations are cruder than usual for Mizoguchi, meaning that this isn't one of his best pictures, but it's still a striking, absolutely convincing and invovling portrait of a distinct, fascinating world.

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Most recent reviews

1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Customer Review

A Customer from UK, 23rd June, 2008

Sansho dayu

I hate to disagree, but I found this film to drag. There wasn't a lot to the plot and one thing I noticed was how bland the directing was.

Obviously, some people really rate this film and therefore I expect a lot of people will disagree with me, but that's just my opinion. I'm not a hater of foreign films and slow pacing is not normally an issue for me either - as long as the scene has something to wallow in.

I have no complaints about the acting or the overall professionalism of the film, it was just in my opinion overly slow paced for such a thin plot, it didn't capture my imagination and it was nothing spectacular to look at.

Some people may find this a `life-changing experience' but I can't imagine why.

Gion Bayashi was slightly more watchable, but overall suffered from the same issues.

Sorry, not keen at all!

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