Shin Heike Monogatari 新・平家物語 |
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Original Japanese movie poster
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Directed by | Kenji Mizoguchi |
Produced by | Masaichi Nagata |
Starring |
Ichikawa Raizō VIII Yoshiko Kuga Michiyo Kogure |
Music by |
Fumio Hayasaka Masaru Satô |
Cinematography |
Kazuo Miyagawa Kôhei Sugiyama |
Edited by | Kanji Suganuma |
Distributed by | Daiei Film |
Release date
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September 21, 1955 (Japan) |
Running time
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108 minutes |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Shin Heike Monogatari (新・平家物語?, lit. "New Tale of the Heike") is a 1955 Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. It is based on the Eiji Yoshikawa historical novel Shin Heike Monogatari. It is one of his two films in color, the other being Princess Yang Kwei-Fei (Yōkihi) of the same year.
Kevin B Lee found it a rather tentative attempt at color filmmaking and a self-conscious "prestige" picture, with Mizoguchi's usual themes present but at odds with the desire for spectacle and action of a samurai movie. Eugene Archer considered the plot was "subordinate to the decor".
Various critics have suggested that the film's setting in a politically unstable time and its concern with the transition of power reflect the situation of Japan in the 1950s, when the film was made.