Movie: A Fond Face from the Past

Top 10 Billed Cast

Ranko Hanai
花井蘭子

Osumi

Takashi Kodaka
小高たかし

Tsuruko Mano
馬野都留子

Kinji Fujiwa
藤輪欣司

Taizō Fukami
深見泰三

Schoolteacher

Masaru Kodaka
小高まさる

Shin-chan

Sumihiko Hara
Sumihiko Hara

Ken-chan

Makoto Matsuzaki
松崎真

Masa-chan

Fumio Okura
Fumio Okura

Masa-chan's father

Soji Watari
渡草二

Shige-san

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  • Overview

    A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because it is also his most direct engagement with the culture of war. When a newsreel comes to Kameoka featuring a local man named Yoichi, it causes some excitement in the community and, of course, in Yoichi's own family. First of all his mother makes the newsreel (Nippon News, no. 14), which begins with the same marching music that opens his own film, followed by a curious baby judging context in Los Angeles featuring two hundred Japanese babies. Released in January 1941, almost a year before the pacific war begins, this “found footage” is indicative of Japanese imperialist ambitions beyond Asia long before Pearl Harbor.

  • Release Date

    1941-01-18

  • Average

    5.9

  • Rating:

    3.0 starts
  • Tagline

  • Genres

  • Languages:

    日本語

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