Ugetsu

MOVIE #1,180 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 10.07.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! I didn't realize the pedigree or how prestigious and beloved this movie was when I settled in to watch. I'm not sure if or how it would have affected my viewing because, in truth, I selected these Saturday films on a whim. The idea: a different Japanese horror (or similar genre) from a different decade, one a week, all month long. I think I just googled “best Japan horror 1950s” and so on. What do you want from me, people? I’m doing my best. There's a character called Ohama and I instinctively thought “Obama” every time I saw the name on screen via subtitle.

This film has amazing atmosphere but I found the backdrop of 1500s era Japanese Civil War to be a bit dense. It’s not an impenetrable story by any means, I just didn’t latch on to the thematic elements as much as I could or probably should have. Can’t argue with this fog, though…


Mizoguchia, who directed about a 100 films (!), is definitely someone I want to take a deeper dive with even if the age and cultural divide of his pictures is something of a roadblock (my list of filmmakers who I want to explore in depth is getting mammoth, though — it’s ballooned to close to 250 names now, which is too many names! There are too many movies!!).

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,179 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,181 ⫸

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Ugetsu, also known as Tales of Ugetsu or Ugetsu Monogatari (雨月物語, lit. "Rain-moon tales"), is a 1953 Japanese historical drama and fantasy film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō. It is based on two stories in Ueda Akinari's 1776 book of the same name, combining elements of the jidaigeki (period drama) genre with a ghost story. It was released on March 26, 1953.