Shikibu monogatari

Shikibu monogatari (1990)

式部物語

Toyoichi Otomo suffers from psychological and spiritual troubles after a horrific industrial accident. He lives with his elderly mother and wife near Mt. Aso in rural Kyushu. He seeks solace in a small religious group run by Buddhist nun Chishu-bo who claims to be the 68th descendant of famed 11th century poet Izumi Shikibu. The members of her sect regard her as a living saint. Yet instead of balming his soul, she riles his libido by playing a sexual cat-and-mouse game with the fragile Toyoichi. When she does bed him, it leads to a miracle healing -- followed by a terrible calamity.

Date of release
1990-10-06
TMDB
3.7 / 10 (3)
Runtime
1h 52m
Genres
Drama
Director
Kei Kumai

Casting

Interesting facts

Shikibu Monogatari , also known as Mt. Aso's Passions, is a 1990 Japanese drama film directed by Kei Kumai. Its screenplay was adapted by Kumai from a play by Akimoto Matsuyo. The film stars Eiji Okuda as Toyoichi Otomo, a mentally damaged man who falls in with a religious cult. It co-stars Mieko Harada, Kyōko Kagawa, Keiko Kishi and Akemi Negishi in supporting roles. The film's score was composed by Teizo Matsumura. Shikibu Monogatari premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Artistic Contribution, before being theatrically released by Toho on October 6, 1990, in Japan.

Background

Akimoto Matsuyo originally devised Shikibu Monogatari as a screenplay for a television film named Umi yori fukaki: Kasabuta Shikibu kō, which debuted on November 21, 1965 on TBS. Matsuyo later adapted her own story into a play, first published under the name Kasabuta Shikibu kō in 1969 by Kawade Shobō Shinsha; the play was republished in 1976 by the same company. In 1970, Matsuyo won the Mainichi Arts Award for her work on the play.

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

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