When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour—a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko (played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine), who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern postwar Ginza district, who entertains businessmen after work. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs shows the largely unsung yet widely beloved master Naruse at his most socially exacting and profoundly emotional.

Japan
1960
111 minutes
Black & White
2.35:1
Japanese
Spine #377

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie
Interview with actor Tatsuya Nakadai
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: essays by film scholars Audie Bock, Catherine Russell, and Phillip Lopate

New cover by Steve Chow

DVD 1 Disc $31.96 SRP: $39.95

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie
Interview with actor Tatsuya Nakadai
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: essays by film scholars Audie Bock, Catherine Russell, and Phillip Lopate

New cover by Steve Chow

Cast & Credits

Cast

Hideko Takamine: Keiko Yashiro
Masayuki Mori: Nobuhiko Fujisaki
Reiko Dan: Junko Inchihashi
Tatsuya Nakadai: Kenichi Komatsu
Ganjiro Nakamura: Goda
Daisuke Kato: Matsukichi Sekine
Eitaro Ozawa: Minobe
Keiko Awaji: Yuri

Credits

Director: Mikio Naruse
Screenplay: Ryuzo Kikushima
Producer: Ryuzo Kikushima
Music: Toshiro Mayuzumi
Cinematography: Masao Tamai
Production design: Satoshi Chuko

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Explore

Tatsuya Nakadai

Actor

A dynamic, handsome star who got his start in Japanese cinema during its 1950s golden age, the Tokyo-born Tatsuya Nakadai defies easy categorization. He is convincing whether playing a mercenary lone wolf or a heartsick love interest, a hero or a villain, in a sleek suit or samurai robes, and just as comfortable blending in to an ensemble as commanding a spotlight. The stage-trained actor was discovered, while working as a shop clerk, in 1953 by director Masaki Kobayashi, who promptly cast him in a tiny role in the controversial drama The Thick-Walled Room; a year later, he was given a walk-on part in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. After a major breakthrough as a young yakuza in Kobayashi’s Black River, Nakadai was on his way to becoming one of Japan’s busiest actors; he would work several more times with both Kobayashi and Kurosawa, as well as Hideo Gosha, Kon Ichikawa, Mikio Naruse, Kihachi Okamoto, and Hiroshi Teshigahara—the cream of the nation’s crop of film artists. Nakadai, still acting into his eighties, is perhaps most often recalled for his ravaging performances in Kobayashi’s epic war drama The Human Condition (1959–61) and Kurosawa’s Ran (1985), in which he embodies unforgettably a cinematic King Lear for the ages.