Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1953


Older Brother, Younger Sister

Buy Older Brother, Younger Sister now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Mikio Naruse. The film is based on the short story 'Ani imto' by Saisei Mur.

Plot



Mon, the elder daughter of a rural family, returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with college student Kobata. Her parents fear a scandal that might threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San. Also, Mon, as the film suggests, supports San's education by prostitution, as the father's business had to close down and the mother hardly manages to finance the family by running a small store. The ill-tempered eldest brother Inokichi decides to take on the role of a disciplinarian, first beating up Kobata when he visits the family to apologise, and later Mon. Still, Mon forgives him and returns to the capital.

Cast



* Machiko Ky as Mon

* Masayuki Mori as Inokichi

* Yoshiko Kuga as San

* Eiji Funakoshi as Kobata

* Kumeko Urabe as Riki, the mother

* Reizabur Yamamoto as Akaza, the father

Reception



Film scholar Alexander Jacoby called 'Older Brother, Younger Sister' an "uncharacteristically brutal film in which the emotional tensions [] explode into physical violence". Film historian Donald Richie objected that by "attempting to move from realism to naturalism, Naruse is occasionally at fault in manipulating his characters a bit too obviously". Keith Uhlich of 'Slant Magazine' gave the film 3.5 of 4 stars for showing Naruse's "considerable skill at portraying household dynamics".

Literary source



First published in 1934, Saisei Mur's short story 'Ani imto' had won the Bungei Konwakai Award. It had been adapted for the screen the first time in 1936 by Sotoji Kimura and again in 1976 by Tadashi Imai. The story has been translated into English by Edward Seidensticker and is available in the anthology 'Modern Japanese Stories'.

References




Buy Older Brother, Younger Sister now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 1953



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1110559960.