Kyo Machiko
Born in Osaka, Kyo Machiko (real name Yano Motoko, 1924-2019) was raised by her mother and grandmother. She adopted Kyo Machiko as her stage name when she entered the Osaka Shochiku Kagekidan in 1936 at the age of 12. She wanted to become a dancer and made her first movie appearance in 1944. Her meeting with producer Nagata Masaichi was decisive: when he became president of Daiei in 1947, he took her away from Shochiku and made her his protégé. Nagata's efforts to make Kyo Machiko a star at Daiei were considerable, and the young woman took part in all the company's major projects, but as her films show, she had real talent first and foremost.
[Kyo Machiko]
In the 1950s, she collaborated with some of the most important directors in the history of Japanese cinema, appearing in films that helped introduce Japanese cinema to the West, most notably Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) and Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1953). In this film, the female ghost portrayed by Kyo Machiko, a typical Noh theater character, wears an authentic costume and is accompanied by the musical instruments typical of this theater genre. But according to film critic Sato Tadao, the actress, a former revue dancer, brings a movement and sensuality to the dance not associated with traditional theater.
Other Daiei productions in which Kyo Machiko starred were Kinugasa's Gate of Hell (1953), Ichikawa's Odd Obsession (1959), and Ozu's Floating Weeds (1959). Many famous Japanese actresses are associated with a particular director (such as Hara Setsuko with Ozu, Tanaka Kinuyo with Mizoguchi, and Takamine Hideko with Naruse): Kyo Machiko often collaborated with Yoshimura Kozaburo, in films such as Clothes of Deception (1951), The Tale of Genji (1951), Night Butterflies (1957), The Naked Face of Night (1958), and Design for Dying (Onna no Kunsho, 1961). Unfortunately, these films were not as artistic as those made by the other three actresses with their favorite directors and have been largely forgotten.
Kyo Machiko's only role in a non-Japanese film was as Lotus Blossom, the young geisha in The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), opposite Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. Although the film was well received in its day, it is one in a long list of stereotypes of Asian women as "geisha girls" or "china dolls," depicting them as "passive and sexually compliant" or as outright prostitutes. Brando's casting as an Okinawan villager has been cited as an example of yellowface casting.
In 1966 she appeared in "The Face of Another" by Teshigahara Hiroshi, as the wife of the protagonist, Nakadai Tatsuya, an engineer whose face is severely burnt in a work-related accident and who is fitted with a lifelike mask (but different from his original face). The scientist who has developed the mask cautions him that it may change his behavior and personality and even make him loose his sense of morality. To test the mask, the man proceeds to seduce his estranged wife, which is surprisingly easy - and indeed, she confesses she knew all along who he was.
Kyo's last cinema appearance was in the 1984 film Kesho, directed by Kazuo Ikehiro. Her penultimate performance had been in 1976 in the 18th entry in the popular, long-running Otoko wa Tsurai yo series, Tora's Pure Love as Tora-san's "madonna."
In 2017, her entire career was recognized with an award at the 40th edition of the Japan Academy Prize. After retiring from film, she moved back to Osaka, where she lived until her death.
Between 1944 and 1984, Kyo Machiko appeared in over 100 films. Kyo Machiko never married.
1. Rashomon, with Kurosawa Akira (1950)
When traveling through a forest near Kyoto, a noblewomen (Kyo Machiko) was raped, her samurai husband (Mori Masayuki) killed, and a robber named Tajomaru (Mifune Toshiro) arrested for the crime. Rashomon relates through flashbacks four versions of the crime, as told at the inquest by Tajomaru, the woman, the dead samurai (a medium is used to let his spirit speak) and a woodcutter (Shimura Takashi), who discovered the crime. It is impossible to reconcile the four narratives and the film leaves the viewer with the ambiguity of the situation. There simply is no way of knowing who is telling the truth. At the basis of this problem is human pride, or in Japanese cultural terms, "Face," which also encompasses a person's identity. As Kurosawa remarked: "Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing."
In his autobiography Something Like an Autobiography, Kurosawa writes how impressed he was by Kyo Machiko's dedication during the rehearsals. "She came in to where I was still sleeping in the morning and sat down with the script in her hand. 'Please teach me what to do,' she requested, and I lay amazed." (Vintage Books 1983, p. 183).
And in Waiting on the Weather, Kurosawa's script assistant Nogami Teruyo writes about the scene in which the bandit grabs Kyo Machiko and kisses her against her will. The bandit, Mifune, appeared quite tense when the time came to plant his lips on hers, and he first said "Please forgive me" with an air of embarrassment. When it was time to record the reaction of Kyo Machiko, the camera had to capture her facial expressions from above, and Kurosawa kept saying, "Kyo-chan, open your eyes, keep them open wide!" As the pair embraced, the camera also registered the sweaty shoulders of Mifune, but that was not from anxiety, but because the make-up crew had splashed him with water to make his clothes look sweaty. (Stone Bridge Press 2006, p. 80).
See my detailed discussion of Rashomon.
In his autobiography Something Like an Autobiography, Kurosawa writes how impressed he was by Kyo Machiko's dedication during the rehearsals. "She came in to where I was still sleeping in the morning and sat down with the script in her hand. 'Please teach me what to do,' she requested, and I lay amazed." (Vintage Books 1983, p. 183).
And in Waiting on the Weather, Kurosawa's script assistant Nogami Teruyo writes about the scene in which the bandit grabs Kyo Machiko and kisses her against her will. The bandit, Mifune, appeared quite tense when the time came to plant his lips on hers, and he first said "Please forgive me" with an air of embarrassment. When it was time to record the reaction of Kyo Machiko, the camera had to capture her facial expressions from above, and Kurosawa kept saying, "Kyo-chan, open your eyes, keep them open wide!" As the pair embraced, the camera also registered the sweaty shoulders of Mifune, but that was not from anxiety, but because the make-up crew had splashed him with water to make his clothes look sweaty. (Stone Bridge Press 2006, p. 80).
See my detailed discussion of Rashomon.
2. Older Brother, Younger Sister, with Naruse Mikio (1953)
The second movie Toho director Naruse made for Daiei, and the only one in which he worked with Daiei star actress Kyo Machiko. It is a family drama set in a poor village outside Tokyo, along the Tama River. The father is unemployed and an alcoholic, the mother supports the family by running a small snack shop. The oldest brother Inokichi (Mori Masayuki) is a rough construction worker, prone to violence. The two sisters, Mon (Kyo Machiko) and San (Kuga Yoshiko), live in Tokyo - the movie consists of three visits to their family in the village. The decent and dutiful San is a student nurse (Mon finances her studies), Mon is something like a bar hostess and later possibly even a prostitute. At the beginning of the movie, Mon comes home pregnant, which leads to anger from her brother and ostracism in the village - San loses her fiancé because of it. Mon is soon chased back to Tokyo by her older brother. Inokichi's violence is partly caused by his incestuous feelings towards Mon. It is said that they have "always been closer than brother and sister". Mon's baby is stillborn, but later her boyfriend - a shy student from Tokyo - visits her in the village to apologize and even offer some money. But the rowdy Inokichi beats him almost to death. In the end, we see the sisters returning to Tokyo together, the only good people in a rotten family. This is an uncharacteristically brutal movie for Naruse, in which emotional tensions explode into physical violence. This is not a perfect movie - not only because of its violence, but especially because of the bad overacting of Mori Masayuki as the brother and Yamamoto Reizaburo as the father. Moreover, Mori is much too old for his role as Mon's brother. But Kyo Machiko gives a great performance and dominates the movie despite her limited screen time. She radiates a great sensuality without doing anything explicitly "sexy".
3. Gate of Hell, with Kinugasa Teinosuke (1953)
Daiei produced Kinugasa Teinosuke's Gate of Hell, the first color film from Japan to be shown abroad, which won both an honorary Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Shot in Eastmancolor, which was thought to have fresher colors than Japanese color film, the film does indeed revel in color. Daiei president Nagata hit the jackpot with this lavish production, borrowing several elements from Rashomon: the period setting (12th century), the "gate" in the film's title, an original story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, and Kyo Machiko as the female lead. A samurai called Morito (Hasegawa Kazuo) has fallen in love with a lady of the palace, Kesa (Kyo Machiko), and, although she is already married, continues to pursue her. Eventually, she pretends to agree to the plan of her stalker: he will sneak into her house at night to kill her husband - but she changes places with her husband and quietly sacrifices herself for his life. This is a better movie than I remembered - but I don't like the acting of Hasegawa Kazuo as Morito (although he was a famous period actor - his campy acting fit the movie style in An Actor's Revenge by Ichikawa Kon) - it's overdone and when he expresses emotion, he just has a mean baby face. Kyo Machiko is tormented by his attentions, but remains dignified - unfortunately, the thick make-up she wears in this historical role sometimes makes it difficult to read her facial expressions.
4. Princess Yang Kwei Fei, with Mizoguchi Kenji (1955)
Yokihi ("The Princess Yang Kwei-fei") is Mizoguchi's first color film, the famous story about the concubine of an 8th century Chinese emperor (see my article about the Chinese play Rain on the Wutong Tree). In Mizoguchi's version, Yang Kwei-fei sacrifices her own life to save the emperor. She loves him so much that she lives on after her execution, speaking to him with her loving ghostly voice. Shot on location in Hong Kong as Nagata of Daiei was targeting the Southeast Asian market. Beautiful cinematography by Sugiyama Kohei, who also shot Gate of Hell. There is not a single outburst of passion from Kyo Machiko during the whole movie, yet her portrayal of the princess is full of feeling (what also helps is that her make-up is less heavy than in Gate of Hell) - and she carries the whole movie. Unfortunately most other characters remain one-dimensional and the whole movie is too static, and not really worthy of Mizoguchi. A good example of the film's flatness is the way Mizoguchi casts Mori Masayuki as the Tang Emperor, making him a total and despicable weakling. This is certainly not historically correct, but also rather boring to watch.
5. Street of Shame with Mizoguchi Kenji (1956)
Akasen Chitai ("The Red Light District" aka "Street of Shame") by Mizoguchi Kenji is a sober tale of a brothel called "Dreamland" in Tokyo's Yoshiwara red-light district, full of women whose dreams are constantly shattered by the socio-economic realities surrounding them in a male-dominated world. The film became Mizoguchi's swan song (he died of leukemia this year at the age of 58); It contains excellent character portrayals, and there are fine performances by amongst others Wakao Ayako (who, as in her earlier films for Daiei, uses her charms to fleece her men) and Kogure Michiko (a middle-aged woman suffering from tuberculosis whose unemployed husband is a spineless, weak-willed man), but Kyo Machiko's Mickey steals the show - in tight sweaters and tight pants, she fits the image of a brash and flashy hooker. When her father comes to see her, she says, "Try holding me - I am a very sensual woman" - shocking him out of his mind! She is the most cynical about her work and detests marriage, which she says is just selling yourself by the month rather than by the hour. She also has no intention of leaving the business, even if the house is closed. This film was made while the Japanese National Diet was debating an anti-prostitution law (which was finally passed shortly after the film's release - Japan wanted to look "clean" because of the upcoming Olympics). Akasen Chitai takes an ambiguous position: in the society of the time, there is no work for many of these women outside of prostitution. The film becomes too preachy in the scenes where this law is explicitly criticized and this is not topnotch Mizoguchi. Awarded a special mention at the 17th Venice Film Festival. By the way, the electronic sounds that composer Mayuzumi Toshiro passes off as film music are like the yowling of cats - a blot on this movie.
6. Odd Obsession, with Ichikawa Kon (1959)
Kagi ("Odd Obsession aka The Key") by Ichikawa Kon is based on the novel of the same name by Tanizaki Junichiro. Ichikawa rather changes Tanizaki's plot (including the finale), but also the characters, making them more vicious. An elderly professor and art connoisseur (Nakamura Ganjiro), who suffers from high blood pressure, decides to spice up his ailing marriage to his much younger wife (Kyo Machiko) with a series of voyeuristic intrigues, hoping to cure his impotence. He invites his doctor, who is also his daughter's fiancé, to dinner and gets his wife drunk - when she falls asleep in the bathtub, the fiancé has to help carry her to bed. While his wife sleeps, the professor secretly takes photos of her naked body, which he asks the fiancé to develop for him. While the daughter is rather cool to her fiancé, the wife falls in love with him and plays along with her voyeuristic husband, giving him a taste of his own medicine. In the end, she kills him by overexciting him. But a shocking fate awaits these three ugly and selfish people in the form of the old maid who has been watching everything in this decadent household. Luminous photography by Miyagawa Kazuo in deep, soothing browns and greens and great performances by Nakamura and Kyo as the perverse couple (Kyo's kimono and traditional make-up with painted eyebrows indicate her conservatism). Also interesting is a young Nakadai Tatsuya as the daughter's fiancé (and the wife's lover at the same time). Won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1960. I am rather surprised at the low ratings this film receives by various critics at IMDB. One even writes "never fully aroused me," without apparently understanding that this is a film about sexual obsession as a theme, not a porno movie (those were in a great bunch made afterward by other directors). The professor may suffer from erotic obsessions (about his own wife, who was very conservative and never showed her body to her husband, not some strange woman), but the wife is indeed looking for a younger man, and the doctor/daughter's fiance is motivated by financial greed - his wish to marry either the daughter or the mother disappears as snow for the sun when he realizes after the professor's death that there is not a yen left - all the art treasures which decorated the house were given on loan by dealers who wanted the expert opinion of the professor. This film is a delicious and morbid black comedy, one of the finest films based on a novel by Tanizaki - a true masterwork.
Read more about Ichikawa Kon in my blog article.
Read more about Ichikawa Kon in my blog article.
7. Floating Weeds, with Ozu Yasujiro (1959)
In Ozu Yasujiro's Ukigusa ("Floating Weeds"), a traveling Kabuki troupe visits a seaside village for a performance. A remake of Ozu's 1934 film A Story of Floating Weeds, it is beautifully photographed in color by Daiei cinematographer Miyagawa. Komajuro (Nakamura Ganjiro), the troupe's leading man, sneaks away to visit Oyoshi (Sugimura Haruko), a former lover who runs a sake bar. She has an adult son, Kiyoshi (Kawaguchi Hiroshi), fathered many years ago by Komajuro, who has hidden his identity from the boy. When Sumiko, the leading actress of the troupe and Komajiro's lover (Kyo Machiko), finds out about this relationship, she becomes very jealous and urges the young actress of the troupe, Kayo (Wakao Ayako), to seduce Kiyoshi. This succeeds so well that both young people fall in love with each other. This makes Komajuro very angry - the patriarch, who seemed so relaxed at first, even starts to use violence against Sumiko and Kayo -, but he can't exercise parental authority over Kiyoshi since he never told his son that he is his father - it is now too late to be accepted. Moreover, the troupe breaks up because Kumajiro has stayed too long in the village for sentimental reasons, where only a handful of very old and very young people also come to see their kabuki. Despite the jealous nature of her character in this movie, Kyo Machiko manages to radiate beauty and sensuality - she is the most interesting character and gets the best scenes. Made in the same year as Odd Obsession, this movie brought Kyo Machiko and Nakamura Ganjiro together again - but I have to say that I didn't like this Ozu movie very much - it is too melodramatic - and much prefer a movie like Odd Obsession (Ichikawa is an underrated director).