In 1949 Japan, an artist is in the mountains doing a painting when he is approached by a woman who turns out to be a news media-shy female celebrity singer. As she has missed her intended bus, he takes her on the back of his motorcycle to an inn where they separately stay the night. When they converse together, some photographers in the area spot them and take a photograph of them, and the scandal sheet they work for invents a story about their being lovers, confident that they will get away with it. But both artist and singer are outraged by the false story, with the scandal making them both public laughingstocks, and a decrepit lawyer visits them and offers to help them in filing a lawsuit against the scandal sheet. Suspicious at first, the artist visits the lawyer's home and discovers that he has a daughter who is seriously ill with tuberculosis. Then the lawsuit is filed...but how trustworthy is this lawyer? Great performances from all, especially the questionable lawyer who suffers poverty and guilt and shame as the scandal sheet people press bribes upon him, knowing how desperate for money he is. What will happen? Will the lawyer end up destroying himself, his family, and the clients who trust him? The performers put life into this otherwise trite message, and we learn a few things about Japan in that era-they do celebrate (secular) Christmas and New Year's, and even sing Western songs with Japanese lyrics to go with these holidays.
Review of Scandal
