Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District

Tatsuya Mihashi and his wife, ex-prostitute Michiyo Aratama are down to their last 60 yen. They go to the gates of Tokyo's red-light district and hesitate. She gets a job as a bar girl, and he as a soba delivery man, but she wants better things, and and so....

There is discussion of recently enacted blue laws, but there are always ways around those, and the world is full of men with extra money and women who want nicer things, no matter how they may get them Miss Aratama's employer has been waiting for four years for her husband to return to her and their two sons; but why should any man walk into that situation when the world is full of willing women? Certainly the verge of Asakusa is no place to seek virtue.

Yûzô Kawashima's film offers a bleak view of the 'new' Japan, filled with the same people who made the old one. Even should these two find redemption, what chance have others?

Recently laid off of his job and unable to find suitable employment, a young man by the name of "Yoshiji" (Tatsuya Mihashi) has lost all confidence in himself along with the respect of his wife "Tsutae" (Michiyo Aratama) as well. To that effect, as they wander the streets with no money, Tsutae considers returning to her former occupation as a prostitute but takes a job at a waitress in a small bar instead. At the same time, Yoshiji also finds employment delivering noodles for a small restaurant not too far from where Tsutae works. But even then, their menial jobs aren't enough to make either of them happy and, as a result, Tsutae abandons Yoshiji in favor of an older man with more money. Needless to say, this has a devasting impact on Yoshiji but, as it turns out, he isn't the only one impacted by this decision. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a decent drama which depended heavily upon the economic conditions of Japan during this particular time in history. So, in that regard, it's a bit dated. Additionally, even though both Tatsuya Mihashi and Michiyo Aratama played their parts quite well, there really wasn't enough passion or excitement to really make this film stand out from so many other Japanese movies of this type. At least, I didn't think so. Having said that, however, I still thought it was entertaining, to a certain degree, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

There is hardly any plot whatsoever and the characters act in ways that you don't believe for a second the possibility for them to be a proper couple (the wife is really annoying with her egoism on full throttle for 98% of the movie while the husband can't stop spouting "woe is me" nonsense), but it is extremely well shot and directed so kudos to the director (of whom I'm making a marathon in these days) for that. It's not even presented as a comedy like the usual from Yuzo Kawashima, so I can't believe he presented this relationship in such a way on purpose. A technically excellent footnote you'll likely to watch once, but nothing else.

This is only the first film of Yuzo Kawashima that I watch and I'm definitely looking for more of his work! Kawashima remains virtually unknown in the west, which is a shame, since, from what I've read, he was a pioneer of Japanese new-wave, a big influence for Shohei Imamura and was highly regarded in Japan. The film is about a young, homeless couple in search for job, that ends up in a small bar just outside the Suzaki red-light district in Tokyo. I found the film really absorbing, I actually felt that I was living too in a small house at the edge of Suzaki river, watching the trucks, the noodle delivery men, the prostitutes and their clients crossing the bridge, in and out of the district. There are also some nice scenes of the busy and full of life streets of the 50s Tokyo. Overall, this is a fascinating film, on par with the other Japanese classics from the 1950s, that deserves to be distributed in the west along with more Kawashima movies, so that we get a chance to discover this neglected director.