#59
Japan | 86 min.
1.33:1 OAR
black & white
monaural
Special Features
• 2 x disc special edition containing new transfers of both Akasen Chitai and Yokihi.
• New and improved English subtitles.
• Full length Akasen Chitai audio commentary and a video discussion about Yokihi by acclaimed Japanese film expert/critic, festival programmer, and filmmaker Tony Rayns.
• Original theatrical trailers.
• 64-page booklet featuring writing by Keiko I. McDonald (author of Mizoguchi), Mark Le Fanu (author of Mizoguchi and Japan), Masako Nakagawa (author of The Yang Kuei-fei Legend in Japanese Literature), ninth-century poetry (A Song of Unending Sorrow) by Po Chü-i, and rare production stills.
Akasen Chitai
Kenji Mizoguchi, 1956
Akasen Chitai [Red Light District, aka Street of Shame] – sadly, the very last film by Kenji Mizoguchi (Sansho Dayu, Ugetsu Monogatari) – presents a vivid portrait of prostitution in 1950s Japan.
In a Tokyo brothel named Dreamland — an obvious irony given the faded hopes of those who work there — the lives of five prostitutes intersect. Each has a very different story for how they entered the profession, but what they share is the struggle to make sense of the red light district and its cycle of exploitation.
Filmed shortly before the Japanese government’s introduction of an anti-prostitution bill, Akasen Chitai is a compelling study of women torn between financial necessity and questions of conscience. It was nominated for the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and inspired French critic Jean Douchet to proclaim: “For me, along with Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux and Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu, the greatest film in the history of cinema”.
The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Mizoguchi’s films for the first time on home video in the UK — Akasen Chitai is only available as a twinpack with Yokihi.
Only available as part of the Akasen Chitai / Yokihi twin pack:
