• Mikio Naruse: Hideko the Bus Conductor (1941)

  • Mikio Naruse: Hideko the Bus Conductor (1941)

  • Mikio Naruse: The Whole Family Works (1939)



Hideko the Bus Conductor

(Hideko no shasho-san)

Mikio Naruse
Japan, 1941
featuring

Hideko Takamine, Kamatari Fujiwara, Daijiro Natsukawa, Tsuruko Mano,

Hideko Takamine stars in the first of her seventeen films with Mikio Naruse, a charming escapist comedy in which the Second Sino-Japanese War is, if anything, conspicuous by its absence. Filmed on location, the story follows a teenage girl who works in a country hot-springs village as a ticket taker for a bus line that has seen better days (obviously, though it is not stated, due to wartime conditions). She develops a scheme to liven up her route by turning the bus line into a tourist line and herself into a “modern” tour guide.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Mikio Naruse
Based On

  • a story by Masuji Ibuse

Cinematographer
  • Ken Azuma
Language
  • Japanese
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • 52 mins
Source
  • The Japan Foundation
Permission
  • Toho
Preceded By

The Whole Family Works
(Hataraku ikka)
(A Working Family)

Mikio Naruse, Japan, 1939

FEATURING
Musei Tokugawa
Noriko Honma
Akira Ubukata

Under the nose of military censors, Mikio Naruse made this quiet drama of a family’s struggle to make ends meet under depression conditions that have been made worse—it is implied but not stated—by the war against China. From the intimate, cluttered family environment, Naruse skillfully shows how the poorest citizens carry the burden of a nation’s ambitions. While complying with the military demand for “inspirational” films on filial piety, Naruse movingly depicts a generation holding its dreams in check for the war to come.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Mikio Naruse
Based On

  • a story by Sunao Tokunaga

Cinematographer
  • Hiroshi Suzuki
Language
  • Japanese
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • 65 mins
source
  • The Japan Foundation
permission
  • Toho

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