net_orders Review of The Ghost of Yotsuya: Part I

The Ghost of Yotsuya: Part I (1949)

Industrial Strength Match Making.

[5/10 · 19 August 2017]

THE YOTSUDA PHANTOM / YOTSUYA KAIDAN, PART ONE / GHOST OF YOTSUYA / THE YOTSUYA GHOST STORY (YOTSUYA KAIDAN / SHINSHAKU YOTSUYA KAIDAN: ZENPEN). Viewed on Streaming. Score = five (5) stars; lighting = three (3) stars; subtitles/ translations = three (3) stars; restoration = two (2) stars. Director Keisuke Kinoshita's Edo-Period soap-er involves an unemployed samurai reduced to making oil-paper umbrellas and married to a former sex worker. The samurai is looking to move up the socioeconomic food chain by marrying into a wealthy family. His wife is looking to remain a De Facto slave who worships her husband while being pursued by a love-obsessed petty thief just out of prison. Tossed into this melodrama pot is a craven, sinister character whose specially seems to be the permanent removal of unwanted spouses, especially wives. Kinoshita is apparently stretching things out to fabricate two movies out of one. The film is too long by about a third as it meanders into boredom with endless scenes of a vacillating samurai unable to decide if, when, and how to shed is lower-class wife. Actress Kinuyo Tanaka in the role of the wife is allowed to go way beyond over-acting to the point where the viewer simply can't wait for her character's demise! Cinematography (narrow frame format, black and white) is okay. Sound stage lighting is frequently less than adequate to see what is happening. Subtitles need to be spell/grammar checked. Signs (of which there are many) are not translated. Score is continuous and good. Restoration (if any) is pretty much absent. Age deterioration is constantly heard and seen along with audio artifacts, broken frames, and poor splices. Despite the title (kaidan), ghosts are among the missing. Not especially recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD