Dancing Girl

Japan’s 1950s sex symbol Machiko Kyo ignites Hiroshi Shimizu’s late-career look at two sisters taking different paths to succeed in a world that has little room for women. Revue dancer Hanae (Chikage Awashima) seems content headlining shows and living in cramped quarters with her violinist boyfriend (Eiji Funakoshi), but things change when her curvy young sister (Kyo) arrives. Little sis knows how men look at her (and do they ever) and how to manipulate that in the modern world. “Will you get married?” Hanae asks her sister about her future. “No, more simple. I’ll just be a mistress!” Filmed amidst the teeming streets and nightclubs of Asakusa, Tokyo, Dancing Girl may bounce to the mambo, but its critiques of Japanese family duty (and a woman’s sacrifice to uphold it) echo throughout Shimizu’s career.