The best Kinue Utagawa’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Kinue Utagawa’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Kinue Utagawa.
Oyuki the Virgin
6.7/10
When a civil war threatens to break out, two geishas flee from their village with aristocrats. During the long journey, the socially inferior women prove to be morally superior to their betters.
The Ghost Cat and the Mysterious Shamisen
6.6/10
A quintessential example of the period "ghost cat" (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, this was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko Kinema between 1937-40 featuring Japan's first scream queen, Sumiko Suzuki. Here she plays Mitsue, the possessive onna-kabuki actress betrothed to apprentice shamisen player Seijiro. When one day Okiyo, a beautiful young girl of samurai class, is led to Seijiro's house by his lost cat Kuro, she becomes besotted with him. Dark jealous passions are invoked in Mitsue, which are intensified when Seijiro gifts Okiyo his precious shamisen. The cat is the first to suffer at the end of Mitsue's hairpin, but returns from the grave to assist Okiyo's younger sister Onui avenge her sister's murder.
Palace of the Singing Raccoon-Dogs
5.7/10
In this Japanese retelling of Cinderella, Okuro (Takayama) is the unfortunate stepdaughter of a family of tanuki: shape-shifting raccoon dogs. She hopes to see the tanuki prince (former Takarazuka star Miyagi) against her stepmother's wishes; the magical spirit of the willow tree, and a hapless kappa (water goblin) intercede in unexpected ways.
