Ikite iru Magoroku

It's a comedy about a field on which a local curse is laid against anyone laying a hoe, two swords of the legendary swordsmith Magoroku, a young couple who want to get married, a doctor looking to buy a Magoroku to appease his father's spirit, and the household head who is dying of another curse.

It's the second known directorial effort by Keisuke Kinoshita, with no listed writer; since he had had writing credits for four years already, I suspect this is a case where he took his name off as writer, because it's a propaganda about how everyone should work hard for Japan, and it's solved by deus ex machina, which is an ending no one has taken seriously since Moliere used it in his comedies.

There are hints of Kinoshita's later issues with social pressure, the sort of issue that often resulted in savage comedies or tragedies like THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA. For the moment, he could not do any such thing. Kinoshita was still a fledgling director, and military censors were still laying a heavy hand on directors. He would direct two propaganda movies the following year, then take a year off, returning as a writer-director of angry works for the following forty years.