Top 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsMost Popular Video GamesMost Popular Music VideosMost Popular Podcasts
    Release CalendarBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersSundance Film FestivalIndependent Spirit AwardsBlack History MonthSXSWSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
Sign In
New Customer? Create account
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
IMDbPro

Taki no shiraito

  • 19331933
  • 1h 50m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
456
YOUR RATING
Taki no shiraito (1933)
Drama
The tragic tale of a woman who despite doing good where she can gets punished by society.The tragic tale of a woman who despite doing good where she can gets punished by society.The tragic tale of a woman who despite doing good where she can gets punished by society.
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
456
YOUR RATING
    • Kenji Mizoguchi
    • Takuaki Seiryô
  • Writers
    • Yasunaga Higashibojo
    • Kyoka Izumi(novel)
    • Shinji Masuda
  • Stars
    • Tokihiko Okada
    • Ichirô Sugai
    • Bontarô Miake
    • Kenji Mizoguchi
    • Takuaki Seiryô
  • Writers
    • Yasunaga Higashibojo
    • Kyoka Izumi(novel)
    • Shinji Masuda
  • Stars
    • Tokihiko Okada
    • Ichirô Sugai
    • Bontarô Miake
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 3User reviews
    • 8Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Photos16

    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Taki no shiraito (1933)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Tokihiko Okada
    • Kinya Murakoshi
    Ichirô Sugai
    Ichirô Sugai
    • Gozô Iwabuchi - usurer
    Bontarô Miake
    • Shinzô
    Kumeko Urabe
    Kumeko Urabe
    • Ogin
    Suzuko Taki
    • Nadeshiko
    Kôji Ôizumi
    • Kenji
    Joe Ohara
    • Tanjirô
    Etsuzô Oki
    • Old detective
    Nobuo Kosaka
    • Detective Takamura
    Takashi Kawase
    Takako Irie
    Takako Irie
    • Taki no Shiraito
    Hirotoshi Murata
    • Nankin
    • (as Kôju Murata)
      • Kenji Mizoguchi
      • Takuaki Seiryô
    • Writers
      • Yasunaga Higashibojo
      • Kyoka Izumi(novel)
      • Shinji Masuda
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    More like this

    Sisters of the Gion
    7.5
    Sisters of the Gion
    Maria no Oyuki
    6.7
    Maria no Oyuki
    The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum
    7.8
    The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum
    Miss Oyu
    7.4
    Miss Oyu
    Taira Clan Saga
    7.3
    Taira Clan Saga
    Flame of My Love
    7.3
    Flame of My Love
    Osaka Elegy
    7.2
    Osaka Elegy
    The Downfall of Osen
    7.1
    The Downfall of Osen
    The Woman of Rumour
    7.5
    The Woman of Rumour
    Women of the Night
    7.2
    Women of the Night
    The Straits of Love and Hate
    7.1
    The Straits of Love and Hate
    The Life of Oharu
    8.1
    The Life of Oharu

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Alternate versions
      Originally filmed as a silent movie with Japanese intertitles; an unceasing voiceover narration in Japanese has been added later.
    • Connections
      Referenced in Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975)

    User reviews3

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    10/10
    Water Trails
    This has been called The Water Magician. My long forgotten Japanese makes me wish the title words Taki no shiraito might contain something like waterfall's white threads, though Taki is also, I think, stage name of the magician protagonist. Anyway, shiroi = white in my memory, and taki at least sometimes means waterfall. Without knowing the character in the film's titles, ito is at least a homonym for thread or, differently, intention. But I'm grabbing too "water" from the English title, so my whole notion may bunk.

    The film is about kindhearted intentions unraveling disastrously (why I wanted thread). Spray fractalling. Foam on rocks. I'd seen all Mizoguchi's sound films, and two or three silents, conceivably even an unrestored print of this one, but last night with live benshi narration and mercifully little music it came alive as few Japanese silents have for me before. One thing to watch for in any Mizoguchi, silent or sound, but no less evident here than in the later work, is his continual reshaping, from within, of the standard 4:3 screen. Everyone knows later Japanese would become masters of scope.By continually repositioning, reframing, shifting focus depth, Mizoguchi does all they've done, if not more, as if the moderns' squashed frame limits rather than frees. One shot may have Taki a splinter against one full vertical edge. In another she'll be a layer between two other characters' layers, each a different distance from the lens, all moving perhaps independently, even if all three together occupy no more than three feet of depth. Shots from slightly overhead end some sections. In the latter third there's a shot of the coach driver, now an official of the magistrate, seated at a table with Taki, he on our right and she center-screen. It's a round table. Despite the seriousness of the occasion, the line of the table curves gently toward Taki. A rectangular table, a dark-against-pale-wall right-angle table corner right there, even with nothing, not a line of dialog or an expression, changed, would have made it a different scene. Early on we usually see Taki dressed for her act, heavily made up. She nearly always shares the screen, seldom fills it. She's first a burden to the serious-minded coach driver, so her approaches to him look coquettish. It's far from obvious that she's to be our hero. Films have been named for femmes fatales. Increasingly toward the end, her face fills the screen, the very features of her face seem to blossom. It turns into a peasant's face, exhausted but proud, at harvest time in a good year. Her whole being waxes before our eyes. The benshi, Midori Sawato, admitted, in Q and A, to having once thought the film was tragic, Taki ending in failure. But Sawato's present take on it, that Taki's heroic, is obvious in Mizoguchi's framings.

    Another small note from the Q and A: the more confusing of two deaths in the film is from choking on a bit-off tongue. And finally, though I admitted above to that tiny bit of Japanese, it's little more than enough to know usually where sentences begin and end, where the parts of speech and proper names are but with nearly no vocabulary. You don't need to know the language to appreciate a benshi. If you get the chance, go see.
    helpful•6
    2
    • frankgaipa
    • Sep 14, 2002

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • June 1, 1933 (Japan)
      • Japan
      • None
      • Japanese
    • Also known as
    • Production companies
      • Irie Production
      • Shinko Uzumasa
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • 1 hour 50 minutes
      • Black and White
      • Silent

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    Taki no shiraito (1933)
    Top Gap
    By what name was Taki no shiraito (1933) officially released in Canada in English?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2023 by IMDb.com, Inc.