Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Taglines:

On November 25, 1970, Japan's greatest author Yukio Mishima commited an act that shocked the literary world...

Parents Guide:

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Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

Japanese | English

Release Date:

20 September 1985 (USA) See more »

Also Known As:

Mishima See more »

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$10,378 (USA) (15 September 1985) (1 Screen)

Gross:

$518,842 (Worldwide)

Production Co:

Zoetrope Studios, Filmlink International, Lucasfilm See more »

Show detailed company contact information on IMDbPro »

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Black and White  | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Trivia

There are two versions of the film, one with English narration by Roy Scheider, the other with Japanese narration by Ken Ogata. The Ogata version also has scenes added by Paul Schrader that were cut out from the original 1985 release. These scenes were added by Schrader to the Criterion DVD release. Paul Schrader : "We did quite a bit of work on it--John Bailey and I worked a week redoing the D.I. and balancing the color. We did great work to the soundtrack. We added a short little scene that I had cut out featuring Chishu Ryu, the Ozu actor, that I always regretted cutting out--we found the original negative and I put that back in. I did some sky replacement at the end of "Runaway Horses" because I wasn't really happy with the shots at the end. We were able to go back and replace the natural sky with an artificial sky. Then we went back to the original digital on Philip Glass' soundtrack and so the sound is much better on the Criterion version. We also put Ken Ogata's narration in, so now it finally has Japanese narration." See more »

Goofs

Factual errors: It was Morita, not Mishima, who locked the doors. When he saw that some doors couldn't be locked, Mishima ordered them barricaded. See more »

Quotes

Isao: By turning one's life into a line of poetry written in a splash of blood.
See more »

Crazy Credits

Yukio Mishima is acknowledged to have been a real person, but his acts
have been fictionalized by writers. Other persons and events in this film
are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons and events is
unintentional. See more »

Connections

Featured in "At the Movies: Crossover Dreams/Maxie/Mishima/Plenty" (1985) See more »