When her only relative, her elder brother is accused of robbing and murdering an old woman loan-shark, pretty, young Kiriko travels from her home in Kyushu to Tokyo to get Japan's top lawyer to defend her brother. Unfortunately her naive idealism is shattered when the lawyer refuses to take the case based on her insufficient funds. What follows is a long determined revenge plot that sees the heroine become a Tokyo bar hostess and worse to punish the lawyer. The plot thickens with another murder mystery and a sleuthing reporter.
Acting
Chieko Baishō's ice-cold transformation from innocent to operator.
Direction
Yamada's patient, merciless framing of moral decay.
Director
Yoji Yamada
Chieko Baisho
Kiriko Yanagida
Osamu Takizawa
Kinzô Ôtsuka
Michiyo Aratama
Michiko Kôno
Yūsuke Kawazu
Ken'ichi Sugita
Yōsuke Kondō
Kôichi Abe
Taketoshi Naitō
Prosecutor Shimada
Shigeru Tsuyuguchi
Masao Yanagida
Etsuko Ichihara
Nobuko
Torahiko Hamada
Judge
Kenzō Tabu
Detective
Sumiko Abe
Madam of the Kaiso bar
Takanobu Hozumi
Manager of the Minase
Chieko Misaki
Landlady
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Yoji Yamada's theatrical debut before his legendary Tora-san series—hard to believe the same director made both.
The bar hostess profession depicted was a genuine postwar phenomenon; Kiriko's exploitation mirrors real economic desperation for rural women in 1960s Japan.
JP
