Big news from the Osaka Asian Film Festival: Yoshitaro Nomura’s 1955 film “The Refugee” will be shown with English subtitles – more details on the festival site. It will be screened at the Hankyu Umeda Hall on Monday at 18:30 and from what I have heard this is an interesting title to watch. Just getting the chance to watch something this old on the big screen is exciting. Here’s information I published about the film in a preview which shows lots of exciting films to watch. I’ll be going to this one.
亡命記 [Bomeiki]
Running Time: 135 mins.
Director: Yoishitaro Nomura
Writer: Toshio Shiina (Screenplay)
Starring: Keiko Kishi, Keiji Sada, Wei Hong, Yunosuke Ito, Chishu Ryu, Kumeko Urabe, Shin Saburi,
With 89 films to his name, Nomura was one of Japan’s most prolific and celebrated directors. He worked in a number of genres from film noir to period dramas but is best known for collaborating with the mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto. They made eight films, including “Castle of Sand” (1974) and “The Demon” (1978) which I saw in London back in 2014. The script was adapted by Toshio Shiina who worked with Yuzo Kawashima, a talent rediscovered in 2012.
Synopsis: A Chinese medical student named Shaochang finds himself cut off from his homeland as he is studying in Japan during the outbreak of the war. Despite his difficult circumstances, he finds love in the form of Sachiko and the two marry. They later travel to Nanjing to live a new life together where Sachiko and Shaochang cooperate with the Japanese-backed government. Their ultimate hope is to secure peace but their idealism is not enough to keep them together through brutal times and with the end of the war the two find themselves facing a divorce…
