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Japan · 2002
1h 59m
Director Kei Kumai
Starring Misa Shimizu, Nagiko Tôno, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Eiji Okuda
Genre Drama, Romance
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Based on Akira Kurosawa's final unproduced script, this Edo-period drama takes place almost entirely inside an ocean-village brothel. O-Shin is a young brothel worker who one night helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel's owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Fortunately, Mr. Kumai, who himself has shown no aversion to baroque melodrama, leans here toward a plain and direct style that is tasteful and intelligent, a boon, given the predictability of the story. He understands the difference between pitiable and pitiful.
Despite a hopelessly corny score, the movie is redeemed by a goofily touching final scene.
As rich and literary a work as you might expect.
Though the episodic, low-key action bears a resemblance to Kurosawa's Madadayo -- his little-seen, underrated final film -- neither the characters nor the plot lend it even a hint of dynamism.
Not just an engaging melodrama that explores the class conflict and sexual mores of feudal Japan, but a work of extraordinary beauty; you could literally hang any random frame on the wall and call it art. No doubt the master would have been pleased.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
An exquisite period film from a script Akira Kurosawa did not live to direct. It has a softer edge than the master probably would have delivered, but it is deeply affecting.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
A mostly unsentimental little gem.
Washington Post by Stephen Hunter
It has the big themes that obsessed Kurosawa at his greatest, and that alone makes it worthwhile.
The screen comes alive only at the end, when a frightening tornado destroys the seaside village.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
An absorbing slice of a lost world that's actually very reminiscent of Kurosawa's underappreciated 1957 film, "The Lower Depths."
Julie distances herself from everywhere and everyone after her husband and daughter are killed in a car accident.