User Reviews

Watching this movie almost makes me feel like delivering an apology to Mizoguchi. Thanks to the wonderful Masters of Cinema releases of his movies I've been slowly working my way through his late period movies. I love them, but I felt that the failure of so many was an excessive formality - a feeling that his characters were not real people, more symbols of various levels of society. This movie is totally different, it is packed with wonderfully realized, vivid characterizations. Ironically, its his last film, but rather than being a swansong it was absolutely cutting edge - the film has a thoroughly modern feel to it, even down to its weirdly avant garde music (the one thing about it I have to say grated with me). And I understand it was one of his biggest commercial hits, a huge success in its day.

The story follows a group of prostitutes in 'Dreamland' a typical brothel of its day in the nighttime quarter of Toyko, shortly before they were made illegal. At the time, brothels were seen as mildly disreputable, but still legitimate businesses. The women work 'voluntarily', but most are trapped due to debts and poverty. They range from the tough, selfish and westernized 'Mickey', a wonderful Machiko Kyo (unrecognizable from the ghost in Ugetsu), the very beautiful Ayako Wakao as the angelic looking but thoroughly ruthless Yasumi, Aiko Mimasu as the aging Yumeko, and a variety of other characters, all without exception wonderful and believable performances.

While humanizing all his characters, Mizuguchi doesn't pull punches about the desperate poverty of the time and the dire straits the women are in. The brothel owner repeatedly insists he is like a social worker, looking after poor women - and he is so convincing he believes it himself. The script never falls into the trap of didactic sermonizing, it simply lets the stories speak for themselves. Maybe Mizoguchi, who was no stranger to brothels in his private life had deeply ambiguous feelings for them himself.

Its interesting to compare this movie to another similar one of this period (and a personal favourite of mine) - Mikio Naruse's 'Flowing', which is much less direct and harsh, with more of an air of sadness at how a part of Japanese society was fading away - but then again, that film was set in a more genteel upmarket geisha house.

This is an immensely fine movie - structurally its amazing that such a complex story with so many characters could be so convincingly told in a relatively short run time - a lesson to all modern film makers. Its absolutely riveting and a masterclass in film making and acting.

But as a final point, films like this are often difficult to end - there is no clear way of finishing a story without a clear narrative arc and how many times have we all seen great movies that let us down with a contrived or poorly thought through ending? I won't give it away, but the ending of 'Akasen Chitai' is quite unexpected and absolutely devastating. Its starkness should by rights leave it up there with the famous last scene in '400 Blows' as one of the greatest in cinema history.

The personal tales of various prostitutes who occupy a Japanese brothel.

Okay, so the opening music is wild. And then for most of the film the music is very mellow or non-existent. What are we to make of this? I have no idea.

Criterion has put this film in their box set of Mizoguchi's "fallen women", appropriately enough. For over twenty years, he really captured women in questionable roles -- from adulteress to prostitute, and never did it in a way that exploited them or shamed them. He was honest and fair.

Some people like his early work better, some like the later stuff. This is his last film, and indeed the polished look is far different from his earliest attempts. Good or bad? Hard to say. One wonders if the war could change a man and his art...

Upon first glance, this may seem like Mizoguchi re-hashing the themes and methods from his more successful films. And a lot seems to be read into the fact of this being his last film and, consequently, it somehow has to stand as a "swan song" or a culmination of his work. But it must be recognised that, form what I can tell, it was never meant to be so. This isn't like Kurosawa's "Madadayo" or Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander," but rather a more specific look at something he had always incorporated (the role of women in Japanese society) but had never attacked as specifically and focused as here. His famous female characters were appropriate vessels for his universal humanism, and he used their plights to make some of the more moving films of his era. But there is little universal going on in this film, it is a direct and poignant attack on a lack of change in a progressive area. The characters misfortunes all reinforce this ethical treatment, as opposed to examining any intrinsic leanings in the human soul. The film is more interesting than truly moving, and you won't see the emotional superlatives that are heaped on his other masterpieces. Still, it is an important film and it would have been interesting to see in which direction he would have gone after this.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

Mizoguchi's swan song is one of his best, personally my second favorite film after Life of Oharu. This is the story of a group of modern day prostitutes in the red light district of Tokyo. Their sad stories are basic melodramas, but they are deeply affecting nonetheless. One is working to support her sick husband and their baby; they had planned to kill themselves until she found out she was pregnant. One went into the business to support a son who now rejects disowns her as his mother. One gets out of the business by marrying, but finds that marriage is even more demeaning than prostitution. One particularly clever one is manipulating a businessman to buy her way out of the place. Another ran away from home with an American G.I. and has begun to mimic Western attitudes and dress, which is a good selling point. Machiko Kyo is the standout as Mickey, the Westernized girl. She has the single best scene, where her father comes looking for her to bring her home. It's a stock scene, really, but Mizoguchi and Machiko Kyo turn it in a direction that I really didn't expect. I was liking the film a lot before this scene without loving it, but this bit blew me away – I loved every second thereafter. Scene after powerful scene lead up to one of the most amazing final shots in a film ever. Throughout the film, we are informed that politicians are trying to outlaw prostitution. In the film, it keeps failing. Due to this film that bill was finally passed.

One thing that sticks out like a wonderful, strange thumb in Kenzi Mizoguchi's (unintentional) swan song is the musical score by Toshirô Mayuzumi. With the exception of a couple of scenes, like when one of the older women working at the Dreamland whorehouse is found on the street by another of the women as she has left her husband, the music is far from being the usual melodramatic simple strings and flutes or whatever. The music for Street of Shame is warped, twangy, accentuated by the the playing of that weird one string instrument (if you've heard Jack Nietzche's score for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest you know what I mean), not supplying the emotional context but observing it, setting an unusual tone for scenes that go between melodrama and naturalistic acting. The music by Mayzumi is sad but not the way you'd think; it perfectly puts us in a world that should be the "other" but there's something familiar about it, which fits since these characters, all women servicing clientèle to pay off debts and support their families, are here because it's a job, nothing more.

The film itself is conventionally structured in terms of the ensemble: several women including Mickey, Yumeko, Yasumi, go through the few ups and the many downs of being a prostitute in a city and country that is very mixed about it. It's legal, but there's rumblings on the radio about a vote coming up about whether to ban it for, basically, the reasons it's illegal here in the United States (not too oddly though, prostitution became illegal shortly after the film was released). Mizoguchi handles the social strata of this with tact and care. It's not something that needs to be turned into a message-story, because the women themselves are the message. He leaves it up to the audience on whether to decide on it; at the least he doesn't paint any characters to be total monsters or caricatures, which include the Man and Madam of the Dreamland house are down the line businesspeople, offering these women a way to pay off debts in an atmosphere that the government doesn't really care about, "that they just talk and make money".

But in leaving it up to the audience, he offers up a very strong case for how prostitution does, in a realistic setting, disrupt and break up lives, and curse some to their respective fates. In one plot line a girl dupes a businessman by asking him to pay off her BIG debts (i.e. 150,000 yen) with the fooled intent of marrying him; another, Mickey, is the bright and chipper one until her father comes to call bringing a whole volcanic scene that at the end she replies "what is this, a movie?"; an older woman working there keeps trying to call her son, only for him to split ways with her due to the shame it's caused him (he goes a little over the top explaining "the whole world knows", but it still works in that scene on the street); and a young mother of a baby has to find ways to help her sickened husband to get by.

On the surface, these stories don't seem like they would make for a tragic mosaic of existential circumstance. But this is what it is, a movie that features so much life that it ultimately is very heartbreaking to watch. The women are all strong but there's that weakness that is brought on by society's double-standard: it's not seen as something acceptable to go about working in this business, but what else will the women do to work? Some may get married, but at what cost? Mizoguchi's triumph is in making it something Japanese society can relate to and contemplate, but firstly it's about character, about them being three-dimensional: fragile very deep down but with a veneer that says "yeah, this is what I am, whadda ya want?" Most touching of all, with the music included, is at the end when the young new girl (a virgin) is put to her first night on the job, with her looking on in a daze and awe on a booming-business night. It's really remarkable work by a master of his craft.

a remarkable coup de grace to mark the end of a remarkable film career. here mizoguchi deals once more with a theme that dominated the length of his film career, prostitution and its effects, exploited on one side of society, shamed through the eyes of another (interesting here is how the family, for example, operates both as exploiter and as judge of these women in mizoguchi's vision). interestingly melodramatic while never losing even a momentary grip on its naturalistic intent, this film is a pure joy, intellectually and emotionally, to watch. the acting, on every side, in particular the five excellent women who play the modern-day geishas, is perfection. a must-see.

Fabulous film making, a really enjoyable and moving film, oh so beautifully shot. Every wondrous frame is a sight to behold and Mr Mizoguchi certainly knew how to exploit the 4:3 academy ratio and as it says in my booklet, don't dare watch it stretched on a widescreen TV. Set in Tokyo's red-light district of the time and against the background of political attempts to have prostitution made illegal, as well as everything else it is a tantilising glimpse of the mid fifties streets. Poverty and hypocrisy, along with the real need to literally pull those punters in. Always ravishing to watch there are additionally some stand out scenes and the controversial ending works splendidly for me with the electronic music preventing it becoming 'sentimental' or 'overplayed' as suggested by Keiko I McDonald in her 1984 biography of the director.

Wonderful. This is another great film of Mizoguchi. Right after WWII, when Japan was so devastated, Many women have to work as prostitutes to survive and support their families. You can feel their pain working as prostitutes. Even now the same thing happens in some countries. Acting is very good especially Machiko Kyo who played "Mickey" is marvelous. I can't forget the words what Mickey said at the end "If you don't deceive others, You'll get deceived." We can still say the same thing can't you? You should see it.

This film was produced in the same year that the Japanese Diet was considering a law which would make prostitution illegal. The irony to that was that the government had not only condoned prostitution a few years earlier but actually encouraged it upon the Japanese surrender after World War II. The intent at the time was to keep American and other foreign troops cordoned into certain areas and away from Japanese women in the general population. In any case, conditions in Japan were rapidly changing and prostitution was now being frowned upon by a certain segment of Japanese society. Essentially, this movie begins at this time and follows the lives of several prostitutes for which the director (Kenji Mizoguchi) admirably manages to show us their point of view. Much of it is quite sad and depressing as a few of these women had certainly seen better days. Yet in spite of everything these women continued to persevere the best way they knew how and their courage was quite remarkable. Also of interest were the two younger females by the names of "Yasumi" (Ayako Wakao) and "Mickey" (Machiko Kyo) who had totally different outlooks on life but at the same time didn't seemed to quite understand the problems faced by the older women. In any case, this is a unique film that ends up being quite deep and profound and viewers interested in such a movie will certainly be pleased. Above average.

A film centering on a brothel in post war Japan, this is the story of the "girls" and how their job affects the rest of their lives. Of course, you're going to get scenes of utter sadness, death and misery, but this film is also, in a few places, darkly comic. Even the musical score is disconcerting, it is avant garde, actually reminding me of Frank Zappa's more esoteric compositions. The individual actresses are amazing, they truly make you wonder, dislike and, in a few quite brilliant exchanges, feel for them. This last film of the great Mizoguchi is a classic, but its a classic that is not always easy to watch. If you think you could become upset about a gritty film about prostitution and the inherent anger, fears and disappointments surrounding it, I would not recommend it. Otherwise, although probably not meant to be Mizoguchi's last film (he passed away fairly young, leaving a stunning body of work), I think you will find this film brilliant & more than likely authentic. A triumph for a director who, in Kurosawa, Ozu and Naruse's time, deserves the accolades afforded to him.

Street of Shame is an important work in Japanese cinema, not only because it is the last film of Mizoguchi, but also because of its pivotal role in sparking the banning of prostitution in Japan. It is at times an overtly propagandistic piece, but is still worth viewing.

The plot revolves around five prostitutes working in a brothel, with the debate over the banning of prostitution looming in the background. We see the prostitutes' motives for entering their trade, and their various means of coping with day to day life. The viewer comes to see these women as human beings, rather than just focusing on their profession or morals.

To the film's credit, it does not whitewash the women or their behavior. Although one woman is depicted as only being in the business to care for her family, others are shown cheating clients, or having an extremely bitter, cynical attitude. Mizoguchi's willingness to acknowledge the flaws of his protagonists makes the film far more effective.

What separates this film from Mizoguchi's masterpieces, such as Ugetsu, is the tendency to slip into overt propaganda or melodrama. There are some all too obvious tear-jerking scenes, and the propagandistic aspects, especially at the end of the film, can get tiresome. Nevertheless, when the film is taken into context, it is well worth watching.

As its better known English title attests Mizoguchi's last film deals with the subject of prostitution but like several of the masterpieces that preceded it, it really deals with the role of women in Japan, a subject Mizoguchi returned to over and over again. "Street of Shame" is set in the present, or at least in post-war Japan, and the government are proposing anti-prostitution laws that will close the brothels down. As it is, the women who work in 'Dreamland' earn little enough.

As you might expect Mizoguchi pulls no punches. For these women life is pretty much hell with survival the name of the game. It is, of course, beautifully acted by all the women concerned and for a film dealing with such dark subject matter, isn't without humour. If the film is no masterpiece it is still quintessential Mizoguchi as well as being one of the best 'women's pictures' of the fifties. Melodrama it may be but, like the best melodramas, this one has the ring of truth.

This is the first film I have seen from Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956), a director who is considered with Ozu and Kurosawa as the best Japanese film directors ever (I love Ozu; I like some Kurosawa but think he is somewhat overrated).

This was Mizoguchi's last film: he is known mostly from his historical epics, but the theme here is somewhat topical, even taken from the newspapers of the day: the lives of prostitutes working on a brothel in Tokyo's red light district in light of a law being discussed in the Japanese parliament for the criminalization of prostitution (that particular law would come into force in 1958).

Mizoguchi shows us the harsh life of the prostitutes, without turning them into saints, as we saw them doing less than exemplary things, for example cheating on their clients. There is the new arrogant girl, Mickey (Machiko Kyo), another prostitute with a grown son who is ashamed of his mother but visits her to her embarrassment; another one has to care for a sick husband.

If the movie has a position in the issue is that prostitution should be legal. Prostitution is deeply rooted in Japanese culture, it is implied in the movie, and this law is being put forward only due to the pressures from Americans. The owner and the Madame of the brothel are hard-nosed but take reasonable care of the prostitutes. In this sense, the film sometimes seems a "message movie", even didactic in its position. Myself, I don't have a position on whether prostitution should be legal or not, but it would be interesting if Mizoguchi let at least one of the characters defend the other side of the issue.

The film has an odd musical score (especially for a movie from the 1950s), which is a sort of Theremin -based experimental score. I can't say it helps the movie.

Despite the misgivings I have mentioned, I did like the film, and found it interesting and engaging.

Visiting any of the great masters (Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi) always galvanizes me into action. I watched "The End of Summer" (1961) and was hooked. I had to see this, a late Mizoguchi, before seeing another Ozu. You know, for the rhythm. And while they are completely different in so many ways, both create such poetry that usually it takes forever for me to watch their films, since I repeatedly have to pause the film to be soaked in the images.

"Street of Shame" (1956), Mizoguchi's last film, is no different in this respect, although it does carry that ominous "last film" aura over its head, which always bodes for some sinister stuff in my personal brooding, regardless of whether the film is comic or not.

The music is provoking. It sounded so much like something out of an Imamura film that I had to wonder whether I had accidentally put in "The Insect Woman" (1963), a film I had been watching recently as well. Constantly it makes you feel that everything's slipping into a chasm, whence there's no return. And things, how do they go wrong.

The film has, overall, a very modern feel to it. Not only in the subject matter, which is in stark contrast with the jidai-geki Mizoguchi is most famed for. It's also the spirit of the film, the aesthetics, the technique. It certainly hasn't got the slightest sense of a "last film" to it.[1] On the contrary, this is a testament in the other sense of the word: evidence of his artistic vitality and boldness in choosing the unsafe way, embracing the risk. Pretty much aligned with what the film is about.

Speaking of Imamura, the film would work well alongside Imamura's masterly explorations of the seedy Japanese subcultures, or "Bakumatsu taiyôden" (1957), Kawashima's comic masterwork. Mizoguchi, with his usual ruthlessness, shows us a world that doesn't work the way we'd like, and in which the only way to survive is to fight, and in which fighting more often than not isn't enough. "Deceive, or be deceived", and still perish.

The hidden center of the film is Shizuko, the young girl who becomes a prostitute by the very end. It's all building up for that moment, where we realize with her that, as what in the context of philosophy and Oriental religion is understood as the circle of life is, in the pragmatism of the film, reduced into a horrifying prophecy of the same things happening all over again. A life lived, yet not for oneself. It's all lies, Shizuko realizes, and excuses, and sad theatre. Sad most of all because there's no way out.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] And why should it? Mizoguchi was working hard on another film, documented well in the documentary "Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director" (1975) by Kaneto Shindô. Some storyboards exist, and seeing them are among the saddest moments in film I can think of. How much I'd love to have seen whatever he had in mind.

Kenji Mizoguchi was a remarkable movie director with a favorite theme: the condition/status of women in the Japanese society (ancient or modern). This particular movie was made during discussions in the Japanese Diet in 1956 about the Prostitution Act. It eminently illustrates the working conditions of geishas in a pleasure quarter. Its general background was the dire economic situation in Japan ('Soon we will be happy to have been stayed alive').

Behind the facade of a house of pleasure, one discovers only problems of poverty, hunger, unemployment, illness in a family, and especially debts, first of all family debts, but foremost, debts to the 'masters', the brothel owners. The majority of the geishas are literally (financially) blocked in their pleasure house. There are also the cynics (a role played remarkably by Machiko Kyo), who want to avenge their fate suffered under 'their' former men (a father or others). The new prostitution law, which included debt cancellation for the geishas, didn't pass the first vote in the Parliament, but was adopted the following year, thanks mainly to the impact of the movie!

The image of 'men' in this movie is absolutely disgraceful. They are stupid, vicious, liars, thieves, cowards, two-faced bastards, with at the top the pimps and their big mouths, who see themselves as the saviors of the world, offering girls the opportunity to sell their bodies in order to permit them not to die from hunger or to save their families.

With a final shot that takes you by the throat, Kenji Mizoguchi made an unforgettable masterpiece, with as its ultimate goal 'human dignity'.

If you enjoyed the 1974 film Sandakan 8, you'll appreciate this earlier 1956 film, Street of Shame. The two films document the lives of women in Japanese brothels who work as prostitutes. Both films document the desperate poverty endured by these women, and the various sexist ways in which women are oppressed and abused by their families and the society. Street of Shame specifically focuses on the post-WWII era while the later film Sandakan 8 actually describes an earlier time in history, closer to turn of the century, so it's an interesting comparison if you see the later film first. Both films show the inner strength and resourcefulness of some women, and the ways in which other women are so beaten down that they cannot survive the cumulative trauma of their lives.

I do not need every movie to have a pleasant ending or have characters I admire, though not having these certainly makes it more difficult for me to enjoy a movie. There are of course exceptions (such as The Seventh Seal or Adele H.--both very depressing movies with very difficult to relate to characters), but it certainly is an uphill battle.

"Streets of Shame" is about the post-WW2 movement to eliminate prostitution in Japan as seen from the perspective of women working in one whorehouse. As I eluded to above, it was hard to really care about most of the characters--many were quite selfish and had unattractive personalities. This isn't always the case in the movie (such as the young man who is angry at and resents his mother for prostituting herself to ensure a decent life for him), but generally I didn't find the individuals that compelling.

It is true that prostitution has a very different stigma in Japan than in many Western countries and so I found this fascinating. However, to get a more compelling treatment of prostitution, try watching Kenji Mizoguchi's film, "A Geisha"--in which an UNWILLING woman is forced to a life of prostitution and desperation.

With an acclaimed Japanese director behind it, this movie was bound for greatness, and it sure did not disappoint.

As testified by the incredible acting, its distinct cinematography typical for classic japanese cinema and splendid script, it's truly yet another incredible testament to this director's cinematic expertise.

It should definitely be experienced by any lover of film. From a filmmaking perspective, it's truly a incredible film, and showcases some rather interesting scenery, cutting and shooting.

The likes of Kurosawa ans Ozu would definitely be fair game in comparison to this one, and its artistic value.

Kenji Mizuguchi's last film startles with a narrative full of subplots centered on the turmoil and sorrows of one brothel's inhabitants; lively staged with a large cast there are some strong and heart-wrenching scenes along the way.

Shortly after the end of WW2, in the days leading up to a vote in the Diet on whether to outlaw prostitution in Japan, five very different women work in Dreamland, a Tokyo brothel. Like many of Kenji Mizoguchi 's dramas, much of the film is about the status of women and about their power, pf lack of it, to control their own lives. Each of the five women has a different reason for working the streets and for at least three of them, there appears to be no other option and the question of how they, and the people that they support, will survive if the government bans their profession is central to their story. On a number of occasions, the owners of the brothel justify their business as offering a social service that the government has failed to provide and, well obviously self-serving, their arguments cannot easily be dismissed. The paralleling stories, cast, script* and cinematography are all very good. Like the women's lives, the film has some joyful moments, but in general, is bleak and sad. The ending is searing. A film well worth watching and both the production's background as well as the times and cultural shifts that it depicts are well worth reading about. *Watched with English sub-titles.

Akasen Chitai / Street Of Shame (1956) : Brief Review -

A Classic Good Bye note from legend Mizoguchi with an Annihilationistical thought of Prostitution being a Social Work. This film goes down in history books as one of the most gutsy film ever made in Japanese Cinema because of daring attempt to showcase the positive side of filthy content like Prostitution. We all look at prostitutes as who*** but they are all woman afterall. They all are mothers, wives, daughters and sisters of someone and doesn't do this work willingly. It's a jammed situation which leaves them with no alternate choice and Street Of Shame perfectly brings that conviction in the writing by using refrences from Japanese Society where Women can't earn good in corporate world and therefore had to walk on this shameful Street. The best point made from the film is, finally somebody tried to call this absurdity normal and acceptable even though it would never become so. One character in the film who runs the brothel continuously says this dialogue that 'We are like social workers'. At first it looked rubbish but after some time i started believing this horrible thought and almost accepted it by the end. Street Of Shame is story of various prostitutes of different age groups working at a brothel and struggling against the livelihood. There is nothing more to the story, it's a compilation of personal lives of those prostitutes where each and every actress plays the role with the heart and the body. The screenplay is highly engaging and short runtime is worths every minute of it. This was the last film of Kenji Mizogichi and i must say that the legend said good bye to the cinema world in grand style. His framework nuances and skills in this film are same as his previous classics but the seriousness of the content was much higher this time. It will take years for others to match this Classic with this concept.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.