Story of a Prostitute

Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.

Japan
1965
96 minutes
Black & White
2.35:1
Japanese
Spine #299

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Interviews with director Seijun Suzuki, production designer Takeo Kimura, and film critic Tadao Sato
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
Plus: a new essay by film critic David Chute

New cover by Neil Kellerhouse

DVD 1 Disc $20.96 SRP: $29.95

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Interviews with director Seijun Suzuki, production designer Takeo Kimura, and film critic Tadao Sato
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
Plus: a new essay by film critic David Chute

New cover by Neil Kellerhouse

Cast & Credits

Cast

Tamio Kawachi: Private Mikami
Yumiko Nogawa: Harumi
Isao Tamagawa: Lieutenant Narita
Shoichi Ozawa: Sergeant Akiyama
Tomiko Ishikawa: Yuriko
Kazuko Imai: Sachiko
Megumi Wakaba: Sakae
Kayo Matsuo: Midori
Kentaro Kaji: Uno

Credits

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Screenplay: Hajime Takaiwa
Based on a story by: Taijiro Tamura
Producer: Kaneo Iwai
Cinematography: Kazue Nagatsuka
Production design: Takeo Kimura
Lighting: Masahiro Takamatsu
Editing: Akira Suzuki
Music: Naozumi Yamamoto
Assistant director: Masami Kuzuu

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Seijun Suzuki

Director

According to critic Manohla Dargis, “To experience a film by Japanese B-movie visionary Seijun Suzuki is to experience Japanese cinema in all its frenzied, voluptuous excess.” Suzuki played chaos like jazz in his movies, from the anything-goes yakuza thrillers Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill to the daring postwar dramas of human frailty Gate of Flesh and Story of a Prostitute to the twisted coming-of-age story Fighting Elegy; he never concerned himself with moderation, cramming boundless invention into his beautifully composed frames, both color and black-and-white. Suzuki first pursued film after returning home to Tokyo from service in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and failing university entrance exams. Following an unsatisfying stint as an assistant director at Shochiku, Suzuki was lured in 1954 to the recently reopened Nikkatsu studio, which was hiring fresh talent to appeal to a new kind of youth audience. He flourished there for years, with such films as Take Aim at the Police Van and especially Youth of the Beast, a commercial breakthrough for him. Yet his bosses became more and more opposed to his increasingly surreal visual stylings and lack of attention to narrative coherence, and after he made Branded to Kill, which a superior deemed “incomprehensible,” they unceremoniously (and illegally) revoked his contract. Of course, as any true Suzuki fan (and they are legion) knows, the incomprehensibility is part of the fun, and today his sixties works are considered some of the most essential of the Japanese New Wave.