Synopsis
A young woman begins murdering all those responsible for her ailing father's condition. Because the girl is so outwardly sweet and innocent, the detective looking into the deaths does not suspect her.
1964 ‘五瓣の椿’ Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura
A young woman begins murdering all those responsible for her ailing father's condition. Because the girl is so outwardly sweet and innocent, the detective looking into the deaths does not suspect her.
Shima Iwashita Yoshi Katō Sachiko Hidari Takahiro Tamura Yūnosuke Itō Shoichi Ozawa Kō Nishimura Eiji Okada Gō Katō Yasunori Irikawa Shirō Ōtsuji Takanobu Hozumi Kakuko Chino Yoshimi Hiramatsu Kaoru Kusuda Keijirō Morozumi Takashi Ebata Tamotsu Hayakawa Hiroshi Aoyama Kiyo Murakami Toyo Takahashi Shinichi Yanagisawa Akitake Kôno Kôei Yamamoto Akira Tani Atsushi Watanabe Zenichi Inagawa Toshie Kimura Kichijirō Ueda Show All…
Goben no tsubaki, Le camélia à cinq pétales
Possibly one of the best Shima Iwashita performances no one talks about?
Shima Iwashita plays a black widow, seducing and slaughtering the lovers of her promiscuous mother, in a sense for revenge for her ill father. She travels under an new identity as she was believed to have been killed with her family, searching out all those that "took advantage" of her mother for momentary physical pleasure. Her revenge is not just for her father, but for all the other women these men have used. However as the film develops, we realise that she is far from innocent and is using these murders to absolve her own sins (from "birthright" and her own actions).
Iwashita is being followed by a…
The Scarlet Camellia is a compelling revenge tale that eventually stitches a detective story into the primary vengeance narrative about halfway through.
The premise is simple: Shino (portrayed by Shima Iwashita) is out for blood, hunting down all those whom she feels contributed to her father's premature death. Shino is cunning, able to both lure her marks into a false sense of security before exacting revenge as well as outfox officials investigating the string of murders.
While never not compelling, it's admittedly overlong. It's clear that they wanted to take their time and tell the whole story in painstaking detail, stretching out and overexplaining damn near every nook and cranny that frames the narrative's context. A good 30mins (at least)…
Much like the other (excellent) Nomura crime pictures i've seen, this is a slow-burn that relies on a somewhat procedural structure but has primarily psychological and emotional interests.
Shima Iwashita is one of my two favorite Japanese actresses and this performance makes a pretty great case for why. Short list of other women, Japanese or otherwise, who could walk the tightrope this part demands as well as she does.
Nomura always has the eye of a painter, and this is no exception.
Spoilers follow.
Impressive how this story, which in some superficial ways mirrors the structure of a rape/revenge movie, manages to make its key victims so deplorable without having any of them engage in any sort of actually violent crime.
Also, has a better version of Oldboy's stupid twist nearly forty years before Oldboy, and actually uses it to a purpose instead of just for edgy shock value.
sra. shima iwashita destruindo tudo, impecável como sempre, mas o todo é um melodrama novelão bem protocolar (e loooooooongo… ). complexo de electra com camélias vermelhas.
Added to: Yoshitaro Nomura, Ranked
Shima Iwashita plays Oshino, a morally conflicted figure, a serial killer and a victim at once. She’s resoundingly the best part of film and her story is a heart-rending tragedy which resonates with Mikio Naruse’s female centric melodrama. But the worst part, at least for me, overshadows Iwashita‘s greatness. The film, playing in two parts with an intermission, is nearly 3 hours long! But the reason why this film is so long is due to an overstretched theme and redundantly written script.
The first part begins with two separate murders by Oshino, who patiently explains the reason, thus her backstory, in front of the despicable men she’s going to kill with her silver hair-pin. We…
While not quite attaining the intricate greatness of his masterpiece "Castle of Sand" 8 years later, Nomura's "The Scarlet Camellia" reaches for the same expansiveness of not only explaining a crime but trying to douse it in sympathy. As a woman goes about killing the men who did her family wrong, Nomura cross cuts between the past reasons for her vengeance and the government agent trying to find her. As usual, the film looks great and there are some striking moments of editing, but it fails to be a truly great film due to a script that explains more than it should and some meandering pacing.