Ugetsu
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| Ugetsu | |
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 Original poster to Ugetsu (1953) |
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| Directed by | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| Produced by | Masaichi Nagata |
| Written by | Matsutarō Kawaguchi Akinari Ueda Yoshikata Yoda |
| Starring | Masayuki Mori Machiko Kyō Kinuyo Tanaka |
| Music by | Fumio Hayasaka |
| Distributed by | Daiei |
| Release date(s) |  Mar 26, 1953 Sept 7, 1954 |
| Running time | 94 min |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Ugetsu (雨月物語 Ugetsu monogatari?) ('Tales of Moonlight and Rain' or 'Tales Of The Pale And Silvery Moon After The Rain') is a 1953 film by Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi. The film, set in Medieval Japan, stars Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō, and is inspired by stories by Ueda Akinari and Guy de Maupassant. It is Mizoguchi's most celebrated film, regarded by critics as a seminal masterwork of Japanese cinema.
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[edit] Plot
Ugetsu is a ghost story, in which a peasant craftsman in Medieval Japan is undone by his greed. Typical of Mizoguchi's films, Ugetsu is politically oriented toward the ways women suffer at the hands of men;[citation needed] also typically, it features stunning visual arrangements and meticulously orchestrated long takes, as well as obfuscating elements like fog and silence.
[edit] Awards
Ugetsu won the Silver Lion Award for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival in 1953. The film has made multiple appearances in Sight and Sound magazine's top ten critics poll of the greatest movies ever made, which is held once every decade. In 2000, The Village Voice newspaper ranked Ugetsu at #29 on their list of the 100 best films of the 20th century.
[edit] Availability
On November 8, 2005, Ugetsu became available for the first time on Region 1 DVD when The Criterion Collection released a 2-disc edition of the film, which includes numerous special features such as a 150-minute documentary on Mizoguchi directed by Kaneto Shindo. The boxset also includes a booklet with an essay and three short stories from which the film draws inspiration: Akinari Ueda's "The House in the Thicket" and "A Serpent's Lust", and Guy de Maupassant's "How He Got the Legion of Honor".
On April 21, 2008 Ugetsu Monogatari is available in the UK for the first time on Region 2 DVD released by Eureka Entertainment as part of their ongoing collaboration with Masters of Cinema. The 2 x disc special edition containing new transfers is released in a double pack which twins it with Oyu-Sama (Miss Oyu).
The box set includes a 64 page booklet, featuring writing by Keiko I. McDonald (author of Mizoguchi and editor of Ugetsu) and award-winning translations of Ueda Akinari’s The Reed-Choked House and A Serpent’s Lust, tales adapted by Mizoguchi in Ugetsu Monogatari. Video discussions about both Ugetsu Monogatari and Oyu-sama by acclaimed Japanese film expert/critic, festival programmer, and filmmaker Tony Rayns. Original theatrical trailers. New and improved English subtitles.
[edit] External links
- Ugetsu at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Phillip Lopate
- (Japanese) Ugetsu at the Japanese Movie Database
- Ugetsu Monogatari at Eureka Entertainment
[edit] Reviews
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