Utamaro and His Five Women

Utamaro and His Five Women (1946)

歌麿をめぐる五人の女

Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the Tokyo brothels provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women vie for lovers, and, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble.

Date of release
1946-12-17
TMDB
7.1 / 10 (38)
Runtime
1h 34m
Genres
Drama
Director
Kenji Mizoguchi

Casting

Interesting facts

Utamaro and His Five Women a.k.a. Five Women Around Utamaro is a 1946 Japanese historical drama film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It is based on the novel of the same title by Kanji Kunieda, itself a fictionalized account of the life of famous printmaker Kitagawa Utamaro.

Background

Utamaro and His Five Women was made during the seven-year Allied occupation of Japan which followed World War II and capitulation of Japan. At the time, film production was overseen by representatives of the occupation forces, and jidaigeki (period films) were rarely made, as they were seen as being inherently nationalistic or militaristic.

Though Utamaro and His Five Women is based on the life of Kitagawa Utamaro, it has frequently been viewed as an autobiographical work by critics. In her 2003 article for Senses of Cinema, Freda Freiberg wrote: "The equation Utamaro=Mizoguchi has been irresistible to most critics as the two artists did have a lot in common.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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