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The Garden of Women ()

Onna no sono (original title)
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A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.

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Cast

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Mayumi Gojô
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Yoshie Izushi
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Tomiko Takioka
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Akiko Hayashino
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Sankichi Shimoda
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Yoshikazu Sagara
Takashi Miki ...
Masao Izushi
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Yoshie's Sister
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Landlady
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Schoolmaster
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President
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Proprietress of the Restaurant
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Yoshihei Hirato
Kappei Matsumoto ...
Yoshie's Father
Kazuko Yamamoto ...
Toshiko
Kazuko Okada ...
Sankichi's Mother
Isao Suenaga ...
Reporter
Mariko Aoyama ...
Professor
Izumi Hara ...
Professor (as Senko Hara)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
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Professor (uncredited)
Tokuko Sugiyama ...
Arai (uncredited)

Directed by

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Keisuke Kinoshita

Written by

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Tomoji Abe ... (story)
 
Keisuke Kinoshita ... ()

Produced by

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Takeshi Yamamoto ... producer

Music by

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Chûji Kinoshita

Cinematography by

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Hiroshi Kusuda

Editing by

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Yoshi Sugihara

Art Direction by

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Kimihiko Nakamura

Set Decoration by

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Setsutarô Moriya

Costume Design by

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Taizô Saitô

Production Management

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Masaharu Kokaji ... production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director

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Yoshirô Kawazu ... assistant director

Art Department

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Kakuzô Sasu ... set designer

Sound Department

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Shûzô Horikawa ... sound effects editor
Hideo Nishizaki ... sound recordist
Hisao Ôno ... sound

Camera and Electrical Department

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Ryôichi Arano ... assistant camera
Kiyoharu Sudô ... lighting technician
Ryôzô Toyoshima ... gaffer

Additional Crew

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Yoshio Nakahara ... film development

Production Companies

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Distributors

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Special Effects

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Other Companies

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Storyline

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Plot Summary

Established in 1908 by its current President, Shorin's Women's College in Kyoto is a private institution of higher learning - a boarding school - although most treat it as a glorified finishing school for the primarily wealthy student body to emerge as suitable candidates of wives for prominent husbands. The policies and teachings of the school are old fashioned, strict and repressive, almost like the students are in a jail without the locks. The policies and teachings are all under the guise of the administrators caring for the girls, whereas they are arguably most concerned about the view of the school to the outside world, they relying on donations from wealthy industrialists to survive. As the administrator with who they deal most often, the girls see as the primary face of that oppression being the dormitory matron, Mayumi Gojô. Most of the students want more humane conditions at the school, but the administrators are able to use whatever dissent that emerges from the students against them, in dividing and conquering based partly on lies and partly on different motivations of the students. The stories of two of those very different students are told in their fight for a better life at the school. One is Akiko Hayashino, largely seen by the students and the administrators as the chief agitator, some believing she being a card carrying Communist, any political thought which is contrary to policy. The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, she is given much leeway as her father is one of the school's chief benefactors, and as she holds damaging information about some at the school in her privileged state. Two is working class Yoshie Izushi, whose father is trying to arrange her marriage to a prominent businessman, whereas she truly wants to learn - she having difficulties catching up after being away for three terms needing to work - and eventually marry her poor activist boyfriend, Sankichi Shimoda, with who her father won't even allow her to associate. Written by Huggo

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Additional Details

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Also Known As
  • 女の園 (Japan, Japanese title)
  • The Garden of Women (United States)
  • Le Jardin des femmes (France)
  • Woman's World
  • Bunt dziewcząt (Poland)
  • See more »
Runtime
  • 141 min
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Did You Know?

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Trivia The director of this film, Keisuke Kinoshita, was regarded by both critics and the public as being engaged in an ongoing professional rivalry with his good friend Akira Kurosawa, because, among other reasons, both filmmakers had directed their debut films in the same year, 1943. (It was Kinoshita who won the Best New Director prize for that year.) In the Best Ten critics poll held by the cinema magazine Kinema Junpo for films released in 1954, this film placed second, beating Kurosawa's most ambitious film up to that time, Seven Samurai (1954), which placed third. In addition, the film that topped the poll that year was another Kinoshita work, the classic Twenty-Four Eyes (1954). (Kinoshita died in 1998, the same year as Kurosawa.) See more »
Movie Connections Featured in 100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1995). See more »
Quotes Tomiko Takioka: I have the right to reject what I dislike. You made it hard for me to go home. What did I do wrong? I'm no longer a child!
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