The Life of Oharu

A peerless chronicler of the soul who specialized in supremely emotional, visually exquisite films about the circumstances of women in Japanese society, Kenji Mizoguchi had already been directing movies for decades when he made The Life of Oharu in 1952. But this epic portrait of an inexorable fall from grace, starring the astounding Kinuyo Tanaka as an imperial lady-in-waiting who gradually descends to street prostitution, was the movie that gained the director international attention, ushering in a new golden period for him.

Japan
1952
136 minutes
Black & White
1.37:1
Japanese
Spine #664

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
New audio commentary for the opening of the movie by film scholar Dudley Andrew
Mizoguchi’s Art and the Demimonde, an illustrated audio essay featuring Andrew
The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka, a 2009 film by Koko Kajiyama documenting the actor’s 1949 goodwill tour of the United States
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Gilberto Perez

New cover by Michael Boland

Blu‑ray 1 Disc $31.96 SRP: $39.95

DVD 1 Disc $23.96 SRP: $29.95

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
New audio commentary for the opening of the movie by film scholar Dudley Andrew
Mizoguchi’s Art and the Demimonde, an illustrated audio essay featuring Andrew
The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka, a 2009 film by Koko Kajiyama documenting the actor’s 1949 goodwill tour of the United States
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Gilberto Perez

New cover by Michael Boland

Cast & Credits

Cast

Kinuyo Tanaka: Oharu
Toshiro Mifune: Katsunosuke
Masao Shimizu: Kikunokoji
Tsukie Matsuura: Tomo, Oharu’s mother
Ichiro Sugai: Shinzaemon, Oharu’s father
Toshiaki Konoe: Lord Matsudaira
Hisako Yamane: Lady Matsudaira
Daisuke Kato: Tasaburo Hishiya
Yuriko Hamada: Otsubone Yoshioka
Komako Hara: Ostubone Kuzui
Kikue Mouri: Old nun Myokai
Haruyo Ichikawa: Lady-in-waiting Iwabashi
Kyoko Kusajima: Lady-in-waiting Sodegaki
Eitarô Shindô: Kahei Sasaya
Sadako Sawamura: Owasa, Sasaya’s wife
Akira Ooizumi: Bunkichi, Sasaya’s employee
Eijiro Yanagi: Counterfeiter
Jukichi Uno: Yakichi Ogiya, Oharu’s husband

Credits

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Producer: Hideo Koi
Screenplay: Yoshikata Yoda
Based on the novel by: Saikaku Ihara
Story editor: Kenji Mizoguchi
Cinematography: Yoshimi Hirano
Production design: Hiroshi Mizutani
Edited by: Toshio Goto
Music: Ichiro Saito
Artistic and historical adviser: Isamu Yoshii

Related Films

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A scene from The Life of Oharu

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Kinuyo Tanaka in Hollywood

Today, we mostly know the great Japanese star Kinuyo Tanaka for her ability to disappear into roles in such films as The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, and The Ballad of Narayama. But in the late 1940s, she was a personality offscreen as well, serving as Ja…

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With its marvelous, distinctive camera work, Kenji Mizoguchi’s searing drama is as technically remarkable as it is humane.

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Repertory Picks

Mizoguchi in Chicago

This Saturday, as part of its monthlong series celebrating the career of legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center will screen Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1952 The Life of Oharu on 35 mm. Adapted from poet-novelist Ihara Sa…

In Theaters — Jan 26, 2017

Explore

Kenji Mizoguchi

Director

Often named as one of Japan’s three most important filmmakers (alongside Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu), Kenji Mizoguchi created a cinema rich in technical mastery and social commentary, specifically regarding the place of women in Japanese society. After an upbringing marked by poverty and abuse, Mizoguchi found solace in art, trying his hand at both oil painting and theater set design before, at the age of twenty-two in 1920, enrolling as an assistant director at Nikkatsu studios. By the midthirties, he had developed his craft by directing dozens of movies in a variety of genres, but he would later say that he didn’t consider his career to have truly begun until 1936, with the release of the companion films Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion, about women both professionally and romantically trapped. Japanese film historian Donald Richie called Gion “one of the best Japanese films ever made.” Over the next decade, Mizoguchi made such wildly different tours de force as The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), The 47 Ronin (1941–42), and Women of the Night (1948), but not until 1952 did he break through internationally, with The Life of Oharu, a poignant tale of a woman’s downward spiral in an unforgiving society. That film paved the road to half a decade of major artistic and financial successes for Mizoguchi, including the masterful ghost story Ugetsu (1953) and the gut-wrenching drama Sansho the Bailiff (1954), both flaunting extraordinarily sophisticated compositions and camera movement. The last film Mizoguchi made before his death at age fifty-eight was Street of Shame (1956), a shattering exposé set in a bordello that directly led to the outlawing of prostitution in Japan. Few filmmakers can claim to have had such impact.