Based on a semi-autobiographical story by Ogai Mori, about a Japanese medical student who goes to Berlin to study in the 1880s and falls in love with a German ballet dancer.
Cinematography
Shinoda's painterly compositions make grief look gorgeous.
Costume
1880s Berlin ballet attire vs stiff Meiji student uniforms.
Direction
Shinoda's final film simmers with unspoken everything.
Director
Masahiro Shinoda
Hiromi Go
Toyotaro Ota
Brigitte Grothum
Anna Weigelt
Haruko Katō
Mareike Carrière
Luise von Bülow
Christoph Eichhorn
Von Meintheim
Toru Masuoka
Kenkichi Aizawa
Shiro Sano
Takashi Tanimura
Takuzo Kadono
Kazusaburo Fukushima
Rolf Hoppe
Robert Koch
Tsutomu Yamazaki
Count Amagata
Hans-Uwe Bauer
Fritz Krüger
Irma Münch
Frau Von Haas
Achim Wolff
Georg Schleicher
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hiromi Go was a massive J-pop idol; casting him as repressed Meiji student was deliberately against-type.
Ogai Mori's original 1890 story shaped Japanese literature's 'self-sacrificing hero' archetype still debated today.
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