Women of the Night

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william d @acsdoug 09/20/2021 The film is interesting when it depicts the struggle to survive in a devastated, post-war Japan. Unfortunately, it also devolves into soap opera-ish melodrama. The latter prevents me from giving this movie a recommendation. See more 08/15/2016 Mizoguchi's film is a grim look at three women coping with post-war Japanese life. See more 07/31/2014 Women Of The Night is a criminally-underrated lost Kenji Mizoguchi film. Then again, much of the director's work is criminally-underrated, as he is forgotten in the wake of other great Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa. However, even with a director whose films are already under-appreciated, even by those standards, Women Of The Night is tremendously underrated, which is a shame, because this is one of his harshest, most emotionally-devastating films he has ever made. In the wake postwar devastation, the film focuses on three women. Two of them are sisters reunited after the war, with their parents dead, and one of them has lost her husband and child, and the third woman is a friend of the two sisters. The sisters move in together, though things immediately go south when one of the sisters (Who works as a prostitute) sleeps with the other's boss (Who the one sister thought was HER lover) and the jilted sister moves out and becomes a prostitute herself. Meanwhile, their friend runs away from home, but becomes entangled in prostitution herself after being taken to a club by an older boy and raped. When she tries to pursue the boy, she is attacked and stripped by a gang of female prostitutes who get her to join in as well since the boy stole her money shortly before the rape, and the fact that she's a runaway. Now the lives of all three women are torn apart by their lifestyle and begin to want to change, but that all depends on the society around them and the harsh life on the streets. The story is really quite interesting, especially how it explores the miserable hellhole of postwar devastation and what people do to survive in such harsh conditions. All three women are given great character development, and they viewer can't help but feel sympathy and heartbreak as their lives take tragic and depressing turns. The acting is also quite good, and all three leads do such a good job that nailing down which one performed best proves practically impossible. Each actress breathed life into their characters made every scene feel real, especially during particularly emotional scenes. Their performances were nothing short of greatness, and should be spoken of in discussions about great film performances. Emotionally-devastating, heartbreaking, and riveting, Women Of The Night is another masterwork from Kenji Mizoguchi that should be more widely known about. It's also a drama that won't leave you even after it's over because of the tremendous impact it will have on you. See more 07/16/2014 A disturbing look at women experiencing precariousness in post-war Japan. La finale est sombre comme Les Belle-Soeurs de Michel Tremblay! See more 02/26/2014 an interesting film about what the women of post war japan/american occupied japan must go through during hard times. See more 11/02/2013 a look at post WWII japan See more Read all reviews

Women of the Night

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