Yôkihi (1955)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Kenji Mizoguchi

Writers:

Matsutarô Kawaguchi (writer)
Masashige Narusawa (writer)

Release Date:

17 September 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | Romance

Plot:

In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to...

Plot Keywords:

8th Century | Emperor | Asia | Japan | 750s

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Machiko Kyô	...	Princess Yang Kwei-fei
Masayuki Mori	...	Emperor Xuan Zong
Sô Yamamura	...	An Lushan
Eitarô Shindô	...	Kao Li-hsi
Eitarô Ozawa	...	Yang Kuo-chung (as Saka Ozawa)
Haruko Sugimura	...	Princess Yen-chun
Yôko Minamida	...	Hung-tao
Bontarô Miyake	...	Chen-Hsuan-li
Tatsuya Ishiguro	...	Li Lin-fu
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Michiko Ai	...	Honghua
Noboru Kiritachi	...	Cuihua
Osamu Maruyama	...	Li Kuei-nien
Sachiko Murase	...	Chengfei
Chieko Murata	...	Lu-hua
Kinzo Shin	...	Servant
Isao Yamagata	...	Yang Hsien

Also Known As:

Empress Yank Kwei Fei
Joeng Gwaifei (Hong Kong: Cantonese title)
Princess Yang Kwei-fei (USA)
The Empress Yang Kwei Fei

Runtime:

98 min | Argentina:100 min

Country:

Japan | Hong Kong

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:U (2008) | Argentina:13

Company:

Daiei Studios

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Aru eiga-kantoku no shogai (1975)

a film more for its great color photography than anything else

I remember seeing this film more than two years ago, and while the entire story is not very memorable (I could probably not tell everything that happens in it now, which is perhaps more my fault than the filmmaker), I have a fond memory of seeing it in visual terms. Kenji Mizogichi, a filmmaker I'm only off-handedly familiar with, has here a very lushly made film, with perfectly constructed sets that spark a tinge of both fable and centuries-gone reality, and costumes that compliment the color photography. And that part, of capturing the images, is maybe the best thing that can be recommendable about the film. For a film about a Princess who was once lower on the ranks in the Emperor's home and becomes the Emperor's love interest, it provides such opportunities for a real vision to set in to guide it all.

Mizoguchi provides it with his cinematographer Kôhei Sugiyama in order sometimes for the film to be told almost all on visual terms (the filmmaker was most prolific in the silent-film era). So in the end, even as the story becomes a little cluttered with some scenes, it's never too complex due to the basics that the filmmaker is going for- and probably why it was picked up by Buena Vista distribution in the 1950s- a beautiful scope of Japan's regal side mixed with some of the lower classes. It's like a Shakespearean tale if it was superimposed into Japan and given a touch of that lost-era of color photography that was only matched by Powell/Pressburger's films.