When you think of Japanese actresses, who do you think of first? Niigaki Knot? Momoe Yamaguchi? Hiroko Tanaka? Yumiko Araki?
Hao Lei once mentioned several acting models in an interview, among which in addition to the well-known Meryl Streep, Isabelle Huber, Kim Min-hee, and the other is Hideko Takayama, who is known as the highest acting actress in The history of Japanese cinema.
Hideko Takayama, formerly known as Hideko Hirayama, was born on March 27, 1942 in Hakodate, Hokkaido. He began working as a child actor at the age of 5 and shot 162 films in his 50-year career
Becoming a star didn't start out of Hideko Takayama's heart. Hideko Gaofeng lost her mother at the age of 4 and was entrusted to her aunt to raise her. When she was 5 years old, her sloppy adoptive father took her to shochiku Kamata Studios and competed with 60 children to play the role of Haruko in "Mother" directed by Nomura Yoshitei.
Nomura immediately valued Hideko Takayama, who was hiding at the end of the team, and Haruko's role also succeeded in making Hideko Takayama famous in one fell swoop. In November, she officially became an actress at Shochiku Kamata Studios, and her adoptive mother gave her the stage name Hideko Takayama.
Shuko the peak of her childhood
Shuko Takayama's masterpiece as a child star is "Composition Classroom", which was filmed in 1938. In the film, based on the composition of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Masako Toyoda, Hideko Takayama starred as a young girl from a poor background, but innocent and cute. Subsequently, Hideko Takayama starred in "Horse" as a horse girl who poured all her feelings into a pony.
At that time, although some media called it "Japan's Xiulan Temple", and The peak Hideko who was constantly filming had also starred in dozens of movies, the peak Hideko under the halo was not as bright as the outside world imagined.
Hideko Gao dropped out of school until she was twenty years old, and she couldn't memorize the multiplication table and couldn't look up the dictionary. And the salary brought by starring in the movie not only has to bear the expenses of the adoptive parents, but also to help the biological father and brother, so that when she receives flowers and gifts from fans, Gao Feng Xiuzi secretly mutters to herself, "If it is money or food, how good it should be." ”
Years later, in her autobiography, Hideko Takayama recalled her childhood fame: "Honestly, I was just a monkey pulled out by a monkey man. ”
The peak of Girls' Generation
It is also because she has become the pillar of the family since she was a child, Andyoko Gao has the tenacity and kindness engraved in her heart, paving the way for her to play various types of female roles in the future.
After the war, Hideko Takayama starred in Japan's first color feature film "Carmen Returns to Her Hometown", playing Carmen, a dancer who returned to her hometown after becoming famous and caused a huge sensation. Later, in the anti-war movie "Twenty-Four Eyes", Hideko Gao played a primary school teacher who opposed militarist education.
It is worth mentioning that "Twenty-Four Eyes" not only achieved a sensation in Japan, but also was released in China in 1956, and indirectly contributed to the visit of the Chinese film delegation to Japan.
In her essay collection A Bug, Hideko Takayama later made no secret of her respect for the Chinese actor Zhao Dan, praising: "Even the three most famous Japanese actors, Matsuhiro Ogami, Toshiro Mifune, and Toshiro Mori, are not as high as Zhao Dan's high status in the Chinese performing arts industry."
Stills from Twenty-Four Eyes
With the cooperation with director Keisuke Kinoshita in many films such as "Carmen Returns to Hometown", "Women's Garden", "Twenty-Four Eyes" and so on, Hideko Takayama's drama path has become wider and wider, jumping out of the image of a young girl and beginning to shape the female image of various occupations and identities. Keisuke Kinoshita's lyrical approach to directing and Hideko Takayama's simple and authentic performance style complement each other perfectly.
In 1941, Hideko Takayama starred in "Hideko the Conductor" directed by Yoshio Naruse, which began more than two decades of cooperation between the two.
In Naruse's works, Hideko Takayama starred in the image of a woman who has endured pain but has not changed her tenacity and cleverness, highlighting the traditional virtues of a generation of Japanese women: silent dedication to the family, tenacious and unyielding to the world, and strong tolerance for fate.
Stills from "When a Woman Walks Up the Stairs"
In 1955, Hideko Takayama starred in Naruse's "Floating Clouds", the best film award and the first best actress award in the film itself or in the "Movie Shunbun", which established Hideko Takayama's status as the first actress in the Japanese film industry.
In 1979, Hideko Takayama starred in Impulse Killing, Son, and on location in Osaka, she announced that it would be her last film.
Hideko Takayama never shoots stripping and nude shots, but always praises the audience with her posture, clever mind and superb performance skills.
The peak Xiuzi on the screen, sometimes a lively and elegant, mischievous and kind young girl, sometimes a loyal and unswerving, inseparable and life-and-death lover, sometimes a gentle and virtuous, shouldering housewife, she makes the female characters on the screen really get rid of male appendages and become the dazzling protagonists in the movie.
Hideko Takayama brilliantly interpreted all kinds of female figures in post-war Japanese society, including ordinary housewives, conductors, boss ladies, teachers, but also strippers, sloppy writers, through Hideko Takayama's films, you can look back at all aspects of post-war Japanese society, the sadness and joy of small people, the turmoil of big society, and the struggle and liberation of women's minds.
In Hideko Takayama's autobiography,"Fifty Years from the Shadow," she recalls her life this way: My life path is very much like an elevator, with ups and downs. Sometimes I was in a deep quagmire and could not move forward; sometimes I was betrayed; and sometimes I was accompanied by poverty and jealousy all day long. However, I have been extremely fortunate to meet many good people and have accepted many jobs that have left me with no time to think about the sorrows, and I am afraid that some people will say that this is "fate", but I believe that the so-called fate is by no means something that can be kept to the rabbit and enjoyed its success, but must be fought for by one's own efforts.
From becoming almost illiterate to later publishing several prose collections and autobiographies, Hideko Takayama also resembled the female character she played off screen- hidden and persevering, never accepting defeat.
In 2009, the Japanese "Literature and Art Spring and Autumn" quarterly magazine voted for the ten most beautiful actresses in Japan in a hundred years. Hideko Takayama came in third.
Stills from "The Bird of The Same Fate"
On December 28, 2010, when Japan was immersed in the joy of the arrival of the New Year, the then 86-year-old Hideko Takayama passed away calmly, and the funeral was simple, with only a few relatives and friends invited to attend.
Japan's Asahi Shimbun commemorates this legend of the times who witnessed The passage of Japanese cinema with "the passing away of the Showa era".
In 1955, Hideko Takayama married Keisuke Kinoshita's student Zenzo Matsuyama, and the two later collaborated on a series of works such as "The Bird with the Same Fate".