The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

Zangiku Monogatari

In 19th-century Meiji-era Tokyo, a young actor, Kikunosuke, breaks away from his adoptive father’s Kabuki practice after a family servant, Otoku, is dismissed.  When they are reunited as lovers, Otoku encourages Kikunosuke to rededicate himself to his art—he is an oyama, playing female roles, but she is the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice.  Director Kenji Mizoguchi’s first film for Shochiku Studios is a key work in defining his mature style, encapsulating his ideas on the vampiric nature of artistic production, and altogether making for what scholar Joan Mellen called “one of the most brilliant satires of the Japanese family system.”

Shochiku Co. Ltd.  Producer: Nobutaro Shirai.  Director: Kenji Mizoguchi.  Screenwriter: Yoshikata Yoda.  Based on the novel by Shofu Muramatsu.  Cinematographer: Shigeto Miki, Yozo Fuji.  Editor: Koshi Kawahigashi.  Cast: Shôtarô Hanayagi, Kokichi Takada, Gonjuro Kawarazaki, Kakuko Mori, Yoko Kawarazaki.  35mm, b/w, in Japanese with English subtitles, 143 min.