Known to American audiences simply as Ugetsu, this was the film which introduced Mizoguchi to the West. During the civil wars of the sixteenth century, a potter desperately trying to continue his craft in a war-torn village meets a phantom princess and is lured away to a land of sensual delights. Meanwhile his neighbor, dreaming of military glory, achieves a general's rank for his fraudulent exploits. Eventually, both men are brought down to earth, and they return home to spend the rest of their lives in the fields. But for the women of the tale the lesson has been even more bitter: the potter's wife is murdered by bandits, the samurai's is reduced to prostitution; even the ghost princess, Lady Wakasa, is destroyed by male betrayal.” --Peter Scarlet

The following is the longer unpublished original note:

Known to American audiences simply as Ugetsu, this was the film which introduced Mizoguchi to the West. During the civil wars of the sixteenth century, a potter desperately trying to continue his craft in a war-torn village meets a phantom princess and is lured away to a land of sensual delights. Meanwhile his neighbor, dreaming of military glory, achieves a general's rank for his fraudulent exploits. Eventually, both men are brought down to earth, and they return home to spend the rest of their lives in the fields. But for the women of the tale the lesson has been even more bitter: the potter's wife is murdered by bandits, the samurai's is reduced to prostitution; even the ghost princess, Lady Wakasa, is destroyed by male betrayal.
The film is based on two stories (the title translates as “Tales of the Pale and Silvery Moon after the Rain”) by the eighteenth-century writer Ueda Akinari, who himself drew on Chinese folk tales. One of the most famous of all Japanese films, it received the Silver Lion at the 1953 Venice Film Festival. (PS)