Osaka Elegy

Osaka Elegy
1936 Japanese movie poster
Directed by	Kenji Mizoguchi
Produced by	Masaichi Nagata
Written by	Kenji Mizoguchi (Original Story) Yoshikata Yoda (Screenplay)
Starring	Isuzu Yamada Seiichi Takegawa Chiyoko Okura
Music by	Kōichi Takagi
Cinematography	Minoru Miki
Editing by	Tatsuko Sakane
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date(s)	May 28, 1936
Running time	71 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Osaka Elegy (浪華悲歌, Naniwa erejii) is a 1936 Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi considered the film his first serious effort as a director, and it was also his first commercial and critical success in Japan. Osaka Elegy is often considered a companion piece to Mizoguchi's next film, Sisters of the Gion, which was released the same year and featured much the same cast and crew.

Plot

Ayako Murai (Isuzu Yamada) is a young woman working as a telephone operator in 1930's Osaka. In order to pay the debts of her father, unemployed and threatened with arrest after embezzling ¥300, she agrees to become the mistress of her employer Mr. Asai. After paying her father's debts she then continues working as a mistress, this time for another workplace admirer, Mr Fujino, in an attempt to help pay her brother Hiroshi's university tuition fees. When she attempts to fool Mr Fujino into giving her extra money, so she can marry her boyfriend Nishimura, he calls the police and she is arrested for soliciting. Upon her return home she is ostracised by her family and her boyfriend and forced to leave home.

Cast of Characters

• Ayako Murai... Isuzu Yamada
• Sumiko Asai... Yoko Umemura
• Sachiko Urai... Chiyako Okura
• Hiroshi Murai... Shinpachiro Asaka
• Sonosuke Asai... Benkei Shiganoya
• Yoshizo Fujino... Eitaro Shindo
• Dr. Yoko... Kunio Tamura
• Junzo Murai... Seiichii Takekawa
• Nishimura... Kensaku Hara
• Inspector... Takashi Shimura

External links

• Osaka Elegy at the Internet Movie Database
• (Japanese) Osaka Elegy at the Japanese Movie Database