Life and Death Love/ Love and Death( 1971) Japanese version of Kaijo
Filmed by Shochiku Pictures in 1971, "Love and Death" was adapted by playwright Taiichi Yamada based on the novels Love and Death and Friendship by Shitoku Takeshi Koji. The film is the second adaptation of the novel after the Nikko film Allure Love (1959), starring Yujiro Ishihara.
The film can be called a typical model of pure love romance drama. Between lovers Jin Nojima (Masaru Yokouchi) and Natsuko Nakada (Kurihara Komaki), Nojima's good friend Yuji Omiya (Shin Klee) appears. Yuji Omiya is strongly attracted to Natsuko Nakata's charm and suffers between friendship and love, but ultimately chooses to be with Natsuko Nakata. Yuji Omiya, who temporarily left Tokyo due to his work relationship, confides his love and thoughts to Natsuko Nakada every day by correspondence. But suddenly one day, a telegram of Natsuko Nakata's death in an accident arrived in the hands of Yuji Omiya.
Stills from the movie "Life and Death Love/Love Death" (1971).
This film, especially for the adaptation of the heroine Natsuko Nakata's life and death, is quite convincing. In the original novel, Natsuko Nakata died of influenza. Now in "Life and Death Love", it is changed to an accidental explosion accident.
I believe that many audiences in the mid-1980s have seen the Hollywood romance film introduced to China, "Love Story Story" (1970) directed by Arthur Shearer Arthur Hiller, and remember the theme song called "Where Do I Begin" in the movie.
Shochiku Film Company, which was responsible for the distribution of "Love Story" in Japan, saw that the film was a very good seller, and wanted to make a film with a similar theme, and insisted on asking Francis Lai, the composer of "Love Story", to compose music for future films. After being politely rejected by the other party, he invited the famous Japanese composer Katsuhisa Hattori. And the heroine locks kurihara small roll. At that time, her acting career was just like the day in the sky, and Yoshinaga Koyuri was considered to be the two top two young Japanese film actresses, and her appearance undoubtedly became a major selling point of "Life and Death Love".
Japanese film "Life and Death Love/Love Death" (1971) Japanese video version of the cover
Director Noboru Nakamura is a big-name director of Shochiku Pictures, and his films Kinokawa (1966) and Zhi Yu Zi Shu (1967) were twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In the late 1950s, China introduced his director's "The Life of a Woman/ A Woman's Life" (1955), and "Ancient Capital" (1963), which he brought during his visit to China as a member of a Japanese film delegation in 1965, was also well received after it was screened in the film circle.
In addition to "Life and Death Love", his "Testament BaiYi Girl/ Girl in White" (1976) was broadcast on CCTV in 1980. In recent years, "Zhi Wei Zi Copy" has also been broadcast on TELEVISION. The first Sino-Japanese co-production, Unfinished Game/ An Unfinished Chess Game (1982), was originally intended to be directed by him, but he unfortunately died of illness during the preparation of filming.
The delicate and moving "Life and Death Love" has the consistent style of Shochiku Film's works. The company is known for making lyrical and sad women's films. Even the title of "Life and Death Love", which uses burlap as a background and launches the title and credits, is the same as the signature approach of the company's big director Xiao Jing'an Jiro's work.
Stills from the Japanese film "Life and Death Love/Love Death" (1971).
However, "Life and Death Love" did not get the expected box office in Japan that year. The "Box Office Value" column of the "Movie Magazine" (late June 1971 issue) states: "I don't know if everyone is like the author, feeling that the movie 'Life and Death' is slightly old-fashioned. Although it has the consistent style of Nakamura's films and is filmed to a considerable standard, unfortunately, there is no feature that this film can be summarized in one sentence. All in all, this can only be a film with a very average box office income. ”
But "Life and Death Love," which is seen as a slightly old-fashioned romance film in Japan, is hot in China eight years later, which may not have been expected by the Japanese at the time. After the film was released in China, it set off a wave of movie watching among the audience and became a social phenomenon. Due to the hero and heroine of the movie meeting on the tennis court, the number of tennis fans in China has surged for a time.
Imitating the title of "Life and Death Love", there have been films such as "Lushan Love" (1980), "Love of the Sea" (1980), "Bitter Love" (1980), "Honghu Love" (1980, renamed "Death of the Marshal" when it was released), "Dance Love" (1981) and other films that added the word "love" to the title. The scene of the hero and heroine reading each other's love letters to each other in "Life and Death Love" was reproduced on stage by Chinese actors and became a reserved program in the local tour.
Although "Life and Death Love", which was completed in 1971, was released in China eight years later, most viewers at the time clearly regarded it as a trendy romance film from the developed countries of contemporary capitalism. Due to the long-term disconnection from the world during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese audiences have lost the reference system for value judgments when they accept foreign cultures. For example, the cream-colored flared pants, shrugged jackets, and large pendant pendants worn by the heroines in "Life and Death Love" are all dressed by Japanese women in the early 70s, but Chinese audiences seem to have completely ignored them, or did not care about these at all, and undoubtedly used them as the latest fashion sought-after imitations.
Similarly, the directorial or cinematographic techniques in "Life and Death Love", which are not new, were also regarded as a new film language at the time. For example, in front of the lovers who express their hearts for the first time, a shot of a tram roaring past, or a camera shooting the painful expression of the hero and heroine in the car who is about to break up through the window of the car hit by the rain, or after the heroine's death, the hero braves the rain to come to the tennis court where the two meet for the first time, and the scene of the heroine's loud laughter echoes on the field, and so on.
The fourth-generation director Shen Yaoting wrote an article highly praising the sound and picture treatment in a scene on the tennis court, and the fifth-generation director Jiang Haiyang also analyzed in detail the camera processing of a scene in the film that broke up in a rainy night car in his graduation thesis submitted to the Beijing Film Academy in 1982.
Japanese Film "Life and Death Love/Love Death" (1971) Chinese film comic book cover
The most famous scene in "Life and Death Love" is undoubtedly the scene of "men chasing women running", and similar scenes frequently appear in domestic movie romance films for a time. In the flowers, on the grass, on the seashore, in the snowy night, the girl runs with a beautiful scarf and smiles, while her boyfriend strides from behind, plus slow motion processing. In this regard, the film critic Yu Min sighed: "As soon as love is expressed, it runs, chases, and the white veil floats in the air." Could it be that the writers and artists themselves are so general when they are in love, and they do not have any characteristics? ”
What did "Life and Death Love" illustrate when it was all the rage in China? As mentioned earlier, during the Cultural Revolution, love was seen as a forbidden area in movies. After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", although the depiction of love was lifted, the expression of love still needed a large political and historical background as a basis. In this case, it is not surprising that "Life and Death Love", as a pure love film that explores the meaning and value of love, can resonate with a wide audience, especially young audiences.
Introduction to the Japanese film "Life and Death Love/Love Death" (1971) in a Chinese film magazine
Of course, in today's view, "Life and Death Love" is neither a world business card, nor even the representative work of director Nakamura Noboru. But that particular period of Chinese history did play an unexpected role. Film theorist Ni Zhen pointed out: "The techniques and techniques of Japanese films were imitated by Chinese filmmakers in the early days of the reform and opening up era, but these technical things are no longer new abroad. ”
Kurihara has also become the most familiar and beloved Japanese actress for Chinese audiences. Her handbags, flared pants, and trench coats that appear in the movie have all been imitated as popular items. Her coiled hair style was also popular for a while, like Ye Wenling's description in the novel "Romantic Dusk" (1986) "At present, there is a second fashionable 'Kurihara small roll' hairstyle, and the hairstyle of women in the thirties often appears to be elegant and elegant, reflecting the slimmer and more long body."
Following "Life and Death Love" and two "Oshinogawa/Oshina Love" (1972) directed by Kei Kumai, "サンダカン八番娼館 望郷/望乡" (1974), the TV series "House of Three" (1968) directed by Kei Kurihara, "Lookouta" - Hasegawa テルの Youth / Wangxiang Star (1980), the stage drama "The Good Man of Sichuan", the movie "Love of Moscow Моссва любовь моя (1974), directed by Yoji Yamada The Story of Boy はつらいよ 柴又より愛をこめめ/寅次郎's Story 36: Shiba and the Love ( 1985) and Xie Jin's "Bells of Qingliang Temple" (1991) have successively met with Chinese audiences, and her somewhat Western-style beautiful appearance and romantic temperament have made China's "Kurihara Small Scroll" hot for a long time.
In 2001, Chinese media people listed the names of Kurihara Komaru among the "Top Ten Sexiest Women of the 20th Century", and in 2002, as a related activity related to the 30th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, Beijing also held a "Kurihara Komaki Film Retrospective Exhibition". Now, as a permanent member of the Japan-Chinese Exchange Association, she is committed to the cause of friendly exchanges between Japan and China.