The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)

残菊物語

In late 19th-century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that the praise he receives is only due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully joins him.

Date of release
1939-10-13
TMDB
7.8 / 10 (133)
Runtime
2h 24m
Genres
Romance, Drama
Director
Kenji Mizoguchi

Casting

Interesting facts

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums , also titled The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum and The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums, is a 1939 Japanese drama film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Based on a short story by Shōfu Muramatsu, it follows an onnagata struggling for artistic mastery in late 19th century Japan.

Production

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums was Mizoguchi's first film for the Shochiku studios after a short interlude at Shinkō Kinema. It was also the initial film of what was later regarded as a trilogy about theater during the Meiji period (the others being the lost A Woman of Osaka [Naniwa onna, 1940] and The Life of an Actor [Geidō Ichidai Otoko, 1941]).

Muramatsu's short story was based on kabuki actor Kikunosuke Onoe II (尾上 菊之助(2代目), 1868–1897).

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

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