Orizuru Osen

Orizuru Osen (折鶴お千) (English: The Downfall of Osen) is a 1935 black and white Japanese silent film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, starring Isuzu Yamada. It is based on Kyōka Izumi's novel Baishoku Kamo Nanban.

Contents

• Cast
• Reception
• References

Like most Japanese silent films, it played with benshi accompaniment. The film centers on the theme of the strength of a woman who gives everything to the man she loves; a theme which Mizoguchi explored his whole life. The moving camera technique and bold retrospective scenes greatly reflect Mizoguchi's experimental approach.

Cast

Isuzu Yamada as Osen

Daijiro Natsukawa as Sokichi Hata

Ichiro Yoshizawa as Ukiki

Shin Shibata as Kumazawa

Genichi Fujii as Matsuda

Eiji Nakano as the Professor

Reception

Japanese film scholar Chika Kinoshita noted that the film occupies a special place within the critical reception of Kenji Mizoguchi's oeuvre and it has been signed out as one of the earliest embodiments of his style in the late 1930s.