Kinuyo Tanaka

Yoshiaki Hanayagi

Kyōko Kagawa

Eitarō Shindō

Ichirō Sugai

Bontarō Miake

Yōko Kozono

Chieko Naniwa

Kikue Mōri

Ken Mitsuda

Masao Shimizu

Ryōsuke Kagawa

Akitake Kōno

Kanji Koshiba

Shinobu Araki

Masahiko Tsugawa

Keiko Enami

Teruko Ōmi

Kimiko Tachibana

Reiko Kongō

Shōzō Nanbu

Ryōnosuke Azuma

Kazukimi Okuni

Saburo Date

Sumao Ishihara

Ichirō Amano

Midori Komatsu

Yukio Horikita

Jun Fujikawa

Sōji Shibata

Akira Shimizu

Tokio Oki

Akira Shiga

Goro Nakanishi

Hachiro Okuni

Akiyoshi Kikuno

Masaichi Nagata

Kanahichi Odera

Tamekichi Mochizuki

Kenji Mizoguchi

Fumio Hayasaka

Mitsuzō Miyata

Shozo Tanaka

Mori Ogai

Kisaku Ito

Ken'ichi Okamoto

Tokuzō Tanaka

Akira Naitō

Kazuo Miyagawa

Shima Yoshizane

Iwao Ōtani

Fuji Yahiro

Yoshikata Yoda

Hisakazu Tsuji

Drama

山椒大夫

Daiei Film

Japan

CinemaSerf

When a benign provincial governor tries to intervene to protect his people from the brutality of the military, he is stripped of his rank and banished. His wife and children are forced to follow him, on foot, some time later and hopelessly ill-equipped for that task they fall prey to people traffickers who split the family up. The young daughter and son soon find themselves bought by the eponymous character and forced into cruel manual labour that only his son "Taro" (Akitake Kôno) seems at all concerned about. Can he help? Can they manage to keep some semblance of their erstwhile decency and nobility in the face of such indifference and oppression? Will the family ever reconcile? This is a glorious film to look at. The photography is dark, gloomy and hugely effective at eliciting a feeling of sorrow for the children as they struggle to survive in their new lives. There are glimmers of optimism, but Kenji Mizoguchi manages our expectations well. There is no yellow brick road here, the sunlit uplands are definitely there but we have no idea when (or if) one or other or neither of the children may ever reach them. The acting is poised and characterful - especially the young "Anju" (Kyôko Kagawa) who tries to look out for her initially weak and vulnerable younger brother "Zushio" (Yoshiaki Hanayagi). It is beautifully scored with a mixture of Japanese and classical themes that compliment well the contrasting images of poverty, wealth, cruelty and kindness of this story of barbarity and revenge. The cinematography does benefit from a big screen - it makes the story and the imagery all the more impactful, but even on a television this is is two hours that truly keeps you gripped.

日本語

Sansho the Bailiff

Cinematography Of Sansho the Bailiff (山椒大夫)

Intendendente Sansho (Sansho the bailiff / Sansho Dayu) 1954 trailer