is a 1929 Japanese silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It is one of the

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...

-leaning " tendency films" Mizoguchi made in the late 1920s. Only a fragment of the film exists today.

Plot

Michiyo, an orphan and factory working girl, lives with her labourer uncle and his wife in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. When he loses his job, they decide to sell her as a geisha. In a dream, Michiyo remembers her deceased mother, a geisha who was in love with a customer who left her after Michiyo's birth. Yoshiki and Sakuma, sons of upper-class families, spot Michiyo in the backyard of her uncle's house and both fall in love with her. Some time later, Michiyo has become a geisha and is now working under the name of Orie. Yoshiki's father, businessman Fujimoto, has developed a crush on Orie, but seeing the ring on her finger which she received from her mother, he realises that she is his daughter whom he once left behind. Yoshiki, who competed with Sakuma for Orie's love, is devastated to learn that she is his sister. Sakuma and Orie marry, while Yoshiki sets forth on a journey to forget.

Cast

* Shizue Natsukawa as Michiyo/Orie * Reiji Ichiki as Yoshiki * Isamu Kosugi as Sakuma * Eiji Takagi as Fujimoto *

Takako Irie was a Japanese film actress. Born in Tokyo into the aristocratic Higashibōjō family (her birth name was ), she graduated from Bunka Gakuin before debuting as an actress at Nikkatsu in 1927. She became a major star, even starting her own produc ...

as Sayuriko

Background

The success of the 1929 song "Tōkyō kōshinkyoku", sung by Chiyako Satō, led to the composure of a serialised novel by Hiroshi Kikuchi, the production of Mizoguchi's film by the

Nikkatsu is a Japanese film studio located in Bunkyō. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures". Shareholders are Nippon Television Holdings (35%) and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (28.4%). ...

studio (while the novel was still unfinished), and even a stage play. Originally planned as a part-talkie with sound interludes containing music, the film was eventually released as a complete silent film. Similar to Mizoguchi's ''Metropolitan Symphony'' (''Tokai kokyōkyoku''), ''Tokyo March'' presented love as the link between members of the proletariat and the upper class.

Home media

A 24-minute-long fragment of the film has been published on DVD as complement to Mizoguchi's '' The Water Magician'' by Digital MEME in 2007.

References

External links

* {{Kenji Mizoguchi 1929 films Films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi Films shot in Tokyo Japanese black-and-white films 1929 drama films 1920s melodrama films Silent Japanese drama films Films based on Japanese novels