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Miss Oyu

Original title: Oyû-sama
  • 1951
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 34m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
2K
YOUR RATING
Yûji Hori, Nobuko Otowa, and Kinuyo Tanaka in Miss Oyu (1951)
DramaRomance

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective wife, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her... Read allShinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective wife, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain clos... Read allShinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective wife, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.

  • Director
    • Kenji Mizoguchi
  • Writers
    • Jun'ichirô Tanizaki
    • Yoshikata Yoda
  • Stars
    • Kinuyo Tanaka
    • Nobuko Otowa
    • Yûji Hori
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.4/10
    2K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Kenji Mizoguchi
    • Writers
      • Jun'ichirô Tanizaki
      • Yoshikata Yoda
    • Stars
      • Kinuyo Tanaka
      • Nobuko Otowa
      • Yûji Hori
    • 11User reviews
    • 13Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos14

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    Top cast17

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    Kinuyo Tanaka
    Kinuyo Tanaka
    • Oyû Kayukawa
    Nobuko Otowa
    Nobuko Otowa
    • Shizu
    Yûji Hori
    Yûji Hori
    • Shinnosuke Seribashi
    Kiyoko Hirai
    • Osumi
    Reiko Kongô
    • Otsugi Kayukawa
    Eijirô Yanagi
    Eijirô Yanagi
    • Eitaro
    Eitarô Shindô
    Eitarô Shindô
    • Kusaemon
    Kanae Kobayashi
    Kanae Kobayashi
    • Nanny
    Fumihiko Yokoyama
    • Book-keeper
    Jun Fujikawa
    • Book-keeper
    Sôji Shibata
    • Book-keeper
    Inosuke Kuhara
    • Boy
    Ayuko Fujishiro
    • Waitress
    Shôzô Nanbu
    • Doctor
    Midori Komatsu
    • Hostess
    Sachiko Sôma
    • Flower Decoration Teacher
    Sumao Ishihara
    • Priest
    • Director
      • Kenji Mizoguchi
    • Writers
      • Jun'ichirô Tanizaki
      • Yoshikata Yoda
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews11

    7.42K
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    Featured reviews

    7MartinTeller

    Miss Oyu

    A man falls in love with the sister of his bride-to-be, but all parties involved are bound by societal constraints. The film has the usual stunning cinematography, with graceful tracking moves and elegant framing. The story is engaging, easy to follow and doesn't drag. It's an all-around good movie. But as I've said before, lately I'm getting bored with Mizoguchi. His films just don't thrill me like they used to. It gets kind of tiresome to watch people hang their heads and bemoan their situations all the time. I get that the point is they're being repressed by archaic social expectations, but it'd be nice to see a little more resistance. Everyone is so damn passive. Again, it's a well-crafted film but one that doesn't really inspire a lot of sympathy for the characters.
    6frankde-jong

    A love triangle Japanese style

    "Miss Oyu" is about a man in love with the elder sister of his wife. In fact he was already in love when he married, and he married only to become the brother in law of his loved one.

    In Western style movies this love triangle would be all about trickery and deceit. In this Japanese film it is all about self sacrifice. The wife knows very well that her husband doesn't love her but wants to allow her sister a sexual relationship. A relationship that tradition denies to a widow with children.

    The only Western film that vaguely resembles "Miss Oyu" in the treatment of a love triangle is part 9 of the "Dekalog" (1989, Krzysztof Kieslowski) in which an impotent man encourages his wife to take a lover. In this film self sacrifice ex ante does not preclude jealousy ex post. Also in "Miss Oyu" self sacrifice has its price.

    "Miss Oyu" is based on a story by Junichiro Tanizaki and directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Given these two big names one would expect a film of high quality. "Miss Oyu" is however at times very sentimental.

    The reason probably is that "Miss Oyu" is the first film Mizoguchi made for the Daiei studio and the Daiei studio needed a commercial success very badly. By the term "studio system" everybody thinks of Hollywood, but the studio system in Japan worked more or less the same. When you were a renowned director, as Mizoguchi was, you were allowed to make one film for the sudio and one film according to your own artistic interest. "Miss Oyu" was for the studio.
    9fa-oy

    Another amazing Mizoguchi's film

    Shinnosuke accepts to marry Shizu in order to be closer to her sister, a widowed wife and mother of a son. Shizu proposes him marriage because doing so would mean staying near her sister, not marrying him and marrying another man would mean to separate from her. Japanese customs forbid Oyu (shizu's sister) to marry another man because it is her duty to educate his son for him to become one day the head of her deceased husband family. Oyu has the same feelings Shinnosuke has for her, so the marriage between him and her sister allows them to be together apparently with no suspicion. The three of them develop a strange bond.

    There's really not much to say about the technical aspects in this film, if you know Mizoguchi's directing you know you're in good hands. Anyway though, as usual, the scenes are beautifully shot. I even found myself really liking the music here, it adds perfectly to the atmosphere.

    Overall, this is another another great film from Mizoguchi that's worth the time.
    9GyatsoLa

    menage a trois (in Japanese)

    Mizoguchi was employed by a studio that wished, post war Japan, to target the womens market with superior, slightly racy melodramas. He directed what by todays standard seems an incredible number of movies in a few years, alternating personal projects like Lady Oharu with more commercial studio fare like this movie.

    This is a top class example of the type of movie that resulted. The term 'womens movie' can seem a little derisive - but this was simply the market they aimed for. It is an adaption of a well known and respected book from the early '30's, although it is set in contemporary times, while the original was set in the Meiji period. In the excellent Masters of Cinema DVD, Tony Rayne's introduction suggests that Mizoguchi wasn't particularly proud of the movie, one reason being that he was forced by the studio to miscast Kinuyo Tanaka as the eponymous heroine, rather than a more elegant, disciplined actress (Hara Setsuko comes to mind as someone who would have played this beautifully). There is certainly a problem with the movie in that she plays the character as a more forceful, modern woman than was probably intended. But I think only those who read the book would find this a major problem.

    The story concerns a young man who rather inconveniently falls in love with the beloved older sister (Miss Oyu) of his intended bride. His bride insists on going ahead with the marriage, but without consummating it, so that he can be close to Miss Oyu, who is a widow who must live at home with her in-laws to take care of her son, but by tradition is not allowed to remarry. Over the years the three-way relationship takes some predictably tragic turns.

    The story is far more melodramatic than the movies of this period by Ozu or Naruse. It could have been pretty horrible in the hands of a less skillful director than Mizoguchi. But his astonishingly beautiful sets and his famous one cut scenes sets the movie apart. It really is gorgeous to look at.

    These stories were and are seen by some Japanese as problematic, as they can be seen as romanticizing archaic sentiments. To my western eyes, I found it utterly fascinating. The manner in which people struggle under arranged marriages to find love and happiness is utterly alien to westerners, yet still compelling. I had somewhat low expectations about this movie as several sources dismiss it as very minor compared to Mizoguchi's pre-war and later period masterpieces. It is certainly not a work of genius to match Sansho Dayo or Ugetsu, but I found it riveting viewing and certainly not a minor movie by any standards.
    6Billiam-4

    Heart-wrenching and sad tale of love and sacrifice

    Heart-wrenching and sad tale of love and sacrifice under harsh traditional rules is told in beautiful, lyrical black-and-white imagery and the cast perform excellently throughout, especially Kinuyo Tanaka in the title role.

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    Related interests

    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
    Romance

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Connections
      Referenced in Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975)

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • May 1981 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • Japan
    • Language
      • Japanese
    • Also known as
      • Frau Oyu
    • Production company
      • Daiei Studios
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross worldwide
      • $5,020
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1h 34m(94 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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