Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

WILLIAM FLANIGAN "A Story From Chikamatsu" (Lit.). Viewed on Streaming. Restoration = nine (9) stars; cinematography = eight (8) stars; subtitles = seven (7) stars; music = two (2) stars. Director Kenji Mizoguchi's fascination with classical literature from and dramas originally written for the Japanese puppet theater (that later became stage plays) during the Edo period couldn't be more obvious. "Chikamatsu" is a pen name (not a place in Japan!) of a playwright who created puppet dramas but is probably best remembered for his domestic plays of love and suicides written in the early 18th Century that seemed to cater to women audiences. Mizoguchi's scenario starts with a purely accidental romantic encounter and continues (through many twists and turns) as a high socioeconomic romantic barrier (between the wife of a wealthy merchant and an employee) slowly dissolves even in the face of institutionalized execution for adultery. Once again, the Director spins a tale where the male protagonist's happiness is derived from a woman's sacrifice and the emphasis (from personal experience?) is on the attraction that some "strong" women have for "weak," impoverished men with close to zero prospects. While this is not a morality photo-play, Mizoguchi stresses (perhaps to the extreme?) that adultery (real or imagined) was a big deal in Japan's Pre-modern Social System. Adultery laws were a bit tricky though. Husbands could have (were expected to have?) unmarried female lovers. Wives who took on male lovers (married or single) were deemed to have committed adultery. Both lovers faced execution for their actions. "Proof" of adultery could be based on heresy, gossip or other circumstantial evidence (and motivated by business jealousy or revenge). The husband and families of adulterers could be thrown in jail and have their assets confiscated. Even villages the adulterers came from could be punished! (It would seem that same-sex adulterous relationships were not legally addressed, since, apparently, they were assumed never to occur!) Criterion's restoration is outstanding! Cinematography is very good (often due to the camera subtly "floating" on a crane. Subtitles are a bit long and often fail to fully capture the Kensai-Ben flavor of line deliveries. Music uses only Japanese instruments. While this may be commendable, performances are uneven with percussion used more to provide irritating acoustic-shocks than to enhance scene richness. Recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Martin Bradley "Chikamatsu Monogatari" , (aka "The Crucified Lovers"), is one Mizoguchi's lesser known works and yet it is no less extraordinary for all that. It is, of course, typical of its director; another tragic tale of corrupted innocence and the terrible hand fate plays in people's lives, in this case a wrongful accusation of adultery over a very simple misunderstanding. Shakespeare could have written this.It's set in the 17th century and it paints as relentless a picture of cruelty and hypocrisy as Mizoguchi has given us and he shoots it almost in semi-darkness, (even the exteriors take place at night or are shrouded in mist or in shadow), so there is no escape for its protagonists nor for us; the inevitability of the lovers' fate is clearly signposted from the beginning.As the couple forced to acknowledge their love for each other by unfolding events Kazuo Hasegawa and Kyoko Kagawa are superb, particularly Kagawa whose performance as the wronged wife is a masterclass in subtlety and tenderness. This is surely one of the key films in all of Japanese cinema.

ottffsse_sequence This is certainly a good film, beautifully photographed and evocatively acted. Yet one should certainly criticize it, and Mizoguchi, for it is not without flaws and weaknesses. Mizoguchi really cared for women, and wanted to make statements on man's lack of sympathy and total cruelty, yet he sometimes gets ahead of himself in trying to make this statement by adopting the wrong means. This is certainly a case in 'the Crucified Lovers', 'Princess Yang Kwei Fei' and 'Zankiku monogatari'. He sets the scenario in feudal Japan, which leaves the viewer at the end with the partially right exclamation: "boy, does feudalism suck, I'm glad that it is over...". And true, some of the scenarios such weaker films of Mizoguchi present would be literary impossible today. Also, his women characters sometimes become archetypes of unrealistic self-sacrifice, which also simplifies the scenario less appealing. Saying that, "Crucified Lovers" is a good film, with such few relative weaknesses, though the sometimes chilly, cynical prose by Ueda, the screenwriter helps this film allot. I still highly prefer and recommend Mizoguchi's 'realistic, 'contemprary' films of 1936: 'Osaka Elegy' and 'Sisters of the Gion', as well as his late masterpieces, in which he showed more restraint and subtlety: 'Ugetsu', 'Sansho Dayu', and 'The Life of Oharu'.

Kalaman I never heard of Mizoguchi's "Chikamatsu monogatari" before until a friend of mine who loves Mizoguchi's films showed it to me recently. It is a beautiful, haunting, and emotionally involving study of forbidden love between a rigid merchant's wife, Osan, and her devoted servant, Mohei, in 17th century Kyoto. The lovers are unfairly punished for having an affair; Osan escapes her husband's home while Mohei is forced into exile. "Chikamatsu" is a highly charged work, but I'm not entirely sure if I would call it a masterpiece on par with "Zangiku monogatari", "The Life of Oharu", "Ugetsu", "Sansho dayu", and "Princess Yang Kwei Fei" - Mizoguchi's richest and most beautiful films. The photography is extraordinarily ravishing and evocative, with Mizoguchi's masterful fluid camera. Also, the sound quality of "Chikamatsu" is interestingly rich and astounding, but the film doesn't stay with you for a while like those aforementioned films. Overall, this is a minor Mizoguchi: beautiful and haunting at times, but inferior to his renowned masterpieces.