Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.
Direction
Camera glides like a ghost through paper walls.
Cinematography
Shadows deeper than the plot's moral compromises.
Costume
Kimonos so lush you'll forgive the French actors.
Director
Max Ophüls
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hayakawa, Hollywood's first Asian star, had to rebuild his career in France after racist American blacklisting. This was his European comeback.
Ophüls' wife was Japanese; critics debate whether this makes the orientalism personal or somehow more complicated. It doesn't make it less uncomfortable.
FR
