User Reviews

Uchida Tomu's YOSHIWARA, THE PLEASURE QUARTER is an example of superb film-making that, in my opinion, only makes one misstep (its stock ending).

A wealthy industrialist, who is much loved for his warmth and kindness, is cursed with a terrible facial scar. As a result, he has much trouble finding a bride who can give him an heir. While visiting Yoshiwara, the famous city of whores, he is smitten by a crass prostitute who tells him: "The scar is not on your heart." Thus begins the man's moral and financial ruin.

The film is extremely sad and moving and presents a "hero" we care very much for. The manipulative vixen is an exaggerated composite of women we've all met and her shameless actions are fun to watch but stinging at the same time.

The performances are all perfectly measured and the cinematography, score and production design are flawless.

I found the ending to be out of context and a deliberate concession to popular swordplay films of the period. Still, this is elegant, powerful, solid cinema.

Portraying the horrors of the world of prostitution is a common goal of Japanese directors and there have been countless films that have tackled the subject but none go quite as far in condemning it as Tomu Uchida's 1960 film Killing in Yoshiwara aka Hero of the Red Light District. The film begins with a brief scene in which Saro, the aforementioned hero, is abandoned on a childless couple's doorstep as an infant. In spite of the ugly "stain" birthmark on the boy's face the couple is glad to have a child of their own and they raise him well and he becomes a kind and successful silk merchant.

All is not well in the adult Saro's life, however: because of his looks it is difficult for him to attract a wife. On a casual trip to Yoshiwara, a nearby red light district, this is made painfully clear when the establishment has trouble finding a prostitute to spend time with him. They end up sending him a boorish young woman who is the object of the contempt of the other prostitutes due to her criminal background. She is told that making this customer happy is her one chance to improve her status and she is determined to seize the opportunity.

As an orphan with no blood relations, Saro is desperate to have a child of his own so it is no wonder that he gives in to the opportunistic girl's demands for money to finance advanced courtesan training. She promises to marry him once the training is complete but she fails to tell him that she only wants to rise to a higher status to humiliate the other girls who had scorned her previously. At the same time Saro's business takes a turn for the worse due to a combination of natural disaster, Saro's kindness to his employees, and the large amounts of money he's spending in Yoshiwara. When he tries explaining his situation to the girl and her greedy bosses he is rejected and humiliated. Too late he realizes that this girl's materialism is actually even worse than the superficiality of the other girls; he has mistaken her obsession with wealth and status for human feeling. Left with nothing Saro becomes the monster he has often been perceived as and turns to violence.

Killing in Yoshiwara is at once an indictment of prostitution and the dehumanizing capitalist society that destroys and perverts a kind man. Tomu Uchida handles this subject delicately and effectively: his work never seems as heavy handed as that of his more lauded predecessors like Kenji Mizoguchi and it displays at least as much technical mastery. Uchida uses scope excellently and the brilliant colors serve to make the experience even more vivid and lively. This is one of the finest tragedies ever put to celluloid and it proves that its director deserves consideration alongside the most revered Japanese directors.