#56
Japan | 84 min.
1.33:1 OAR
black & white
monaural
Special Features
• 2 x disc special edition containing new film restorations of both Chikamatsu Monogatari and Uwasa no Onna.
• New and improved English subtitles.
• Video discussions about both Chikamatsu Monogatari and Uwasa no Onna by acclaimed Japanese film expert/critic, festival programmer, and filmmaker Tony Rayns.
• Original theatrical trailers.
• 56-page booklet featuring writing by Keiko I. McDonald (author of Mizoguchi) and Mark Le Fanu (author of Mizoguchi and Japan), as well as extracts from Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s The Almanac of Love and Ihara Saikaku’s What the Seasons Brought to the Almanac-Maker, texts adapted by Mizoguchi in Chikamatsu Monogatari.
The Catalogue
Uwasa no onna
Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954
Released the same year as Chikamatsu Monogatari, Uwasa no Onna [The Woman in the Rumour] offers a contrasting portrait of attitudes and mores concerning love and relationships. Set in a modern Kyoto geisha house, the eponymous woman in the rumour is Hatsuko (Kinuyo Tanaka, star of countless Mizoguchi films, in her last role for the director with whom she was often romantically linked), madame of her own geisha house. When Hatsuko ends up pursuing the same man as her daughter, Yukiko (Yoshiko Kuga), both women are forced to confront their attitudes towards each other and the family business.
The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Mizoguchi’s films for the first time on home video in the UK — Uwasa no Onna is only available as a twinpack with Chikamatsu Monogatari.
Only available as part of the Chikamatsu Monogatari & Uwasa No Onna twin pack:
