Sansho the Bailiff
| Sansho the Bailiff | |
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Japanese theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| Produced by | Masaichi Nagata |
| Written by |
Fuji Yahiro Yoshikata Yoda Mori Ōgai (story) |
| Starring |
Kinuyo Tanaka Yoshiaki Hanayagi Kyōko Kagawa Eitarō Shindō |
| Music by |
Fumio Hayasaka Tamekichi Mocizuki Kinshichi Kodera |
| Cinematography | Kazuo Miyagawa |
| Distributed by | Daiei Film |
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Release date
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Running time
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124 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Sansho the Bailiff (山椒大夫 Sanshō Dayū?) (known by its Japanese title in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is a 1954 Japanese period film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Based on a short story of the same name by Mori Ōgai, it follows two aristocratic children who are sold into slavery.
Sansho the Bailiff bears many of Mizoguchi's hallmarks, such as portrayals of poverty, a critical view of the place of women in contemporary Japan, and elaborately choreographed long shots – the director of photography for which was Kazuo Miyagawa, Mizoguchi's regular collaborator. Today, the film is often ranked alongside Ugetsu (1953) as one of Mizoguchi's finest works.
Sansho the Bailiff is a jidai-geki, or historical film, set in the Heian period of feudal Japan. A virtuous governor is banished by a feudal lord to a far-off province. His wife and children are sent to live with her brother. Several years later, the wife, Tamaki (Kinuyo Tanaka), and children, Zushiō and Anju, journey to his exiled land, but are tricked on the journey by a treacherous priestess. The mother is sold into prostitution in Sado and the children are sold by slave traders to a manorial estate in which slaves are brutalized, working under horrific conditions and branded when they try to escape. The estate, protected under the Minister of the Right, is administered by the eponymous Sanshō (Eitarō Shindō), a bailiff (or steward). Sanshō's son Tarō (Akitake Kōno), the second-in-charge, is a much more humane master, and he convinces the two they must survive in the manor before they can escape to find their father.
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