The movie "Flag of mist/霧の旗" (1977) Japanese Blu-ray edition cover
Japanese mystery novels have always been particularly outstanding, and there are many mystery novel writers, and Kiyoharu Matsumoto (1909-1992) is one of them. Kiyoharu Matsumoto's novels, even after reading and reading again, or after many years, are still fascinating, not only the storyline and layout are brilliant, but his portrayal of human nature is particularly exquisite, and "Flag of mist/霧の旗" is one of the good examples. Through the revenge of a young girl, this story not only exposes some dark sides of human nature, but also describes the deformities, darkness and absurdity of the Japanese judicial circles at that time.
"Flag of fog" is a novella, about the Nine Continents girl Yanagida Kiriko in order to wash away her brother's injustice, alone and shadowed to Tokyo to find the famous lawyer Otsuka Keizo for the brother's flesh and bones to fight a lawsuit, the brother committed suicide in prison, in order to take revenge, Yanagida Kiriko seduced Otsuka Kenzo with her body, and finally exposed the truth, so that a lawyer who was known as a famous lawyer in the country was ruined. What is even more deplorable is that in order to get revenge, Yanagida Kiriko also forcibly suppressed this person's rambling first love and ruthlessly ruined her life. And the destruction is unrepentant.
电雾
At least many people did not believe or see that Yanagida Kiriko was willing to spoil herself. Director Yoji Yamada first brought the novel to the screen in 1965, starring chiko in the Series Of Injiro/Ojiro/Otoko. At that time, this version of the film box office was average, and Yamada Yoji was still very young in his control of the movie.
In the 1970s, "Flag of the Mist" was remade and starred to be the popular Japanese star Ataka Yamaguchi. Flag of mist was the last of six films directed by director Katsumi Nishikawa (1918-2010) and Momoe Yamaguchi. In 1977, the last two films cooperated by Nishikawa Katsumi and Yamaguchi Were not satisfactory at the box office, and the "Tomb of Noki/Noki Noki Tomb" released in July of the same year, and Yamaguchi Momoe starred in the couple was Sakuda Shu, after the release of the movie, the audience was very unbiestainable, resulting in the film box office is extremely unsatisfactory, I don't know what idea Nishikawa Katsuji was willing to take this risk to launch a newcomer Sakuda Shu.
Nogikuno's Grave/ Nogiku no Grave (1977) Osamu Sakuda, Left
The "Flag of the Mist", released on December 17, 1977, although Tomokazu Miura returned to Yamaguchi's side, the real male protagonist in the film was Rintaro Mikuni, which made the audience who liked Yamaguchi and Miura Yuwa and the couple file completely angry and ashamed, complained to the film company, and since then director Katsumi Nishikawa has never worked with Yamaguchi Momoe and Miura Yuwa. Although the film publicity of the movie "Flag of the Mist" is more intensive than Yamaguchi's previous works, and there are several promotional special issues on the film, the audience always feels deceived.
"Flag of the Mist" should be one of the more obscure of the 18 film artworks that Yamaguchi is engaged in. The image of Kiriko Yanagida's suitor, Keichi Abe (Yukazu Miura), is also a new symbol. Throughout the film, the newspaper reporter Abe almost appears as an image of justice or justice.
The movie "Flag of mist/霧の旗" (1977) Japanese VCD edition cover
In the creation of Matsumoto Kiyoharu, he let Abe Keichi appear every time with a youthful and beautiful posture, and once he showed his face, he asked the heroine Yanagida Kiriko Chrome to remember. Such artistic creations are also uncommon in most of Matsumoto Kiyoharu's speculative fiction. In fact, the success of Kiyoharu Matsumoto's original work on the screen and further deepening the theme is directly related to the screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto. Open the section on "The Suspense of Script Writer Hashimoto Shinobu" in the famous Japanese theoretical article "History of Japanese Postwar Cinema", and you can find out what is called a movie script.
As the image of Keiichi Abe continues to appear in the film, Kiriko Yanagida, played by Yamaguchi Momoe, is getting closer to the target of revenge, almost crazy. And it's inner madness. The film tells the audience a pitiful and stubborn truth, love can not save affection. Although Keiichi Abe's love is sacred and persistent, it seems to be completely useless in the eyes of Yanagida Kiriko, and she moves step by step towards the goal of revenge, and also step by step towards death.
Stills from the movie Flag of the Mist/ Flag of Mist (1977).
In fact, for this kind of emotion, many viewers still have a little doubt, thinking that a brother's injustice really has such a huge motivation? How could a naïve and innocent girl deteriorate so inhumanely? Indeed, throughout Flag of the Mist, we only see the heroine's brilliant face, which only appears within three minutes of her brother's scene at the beginning of the film.
Kiriko Yanagida in the film "Flag of The Mist" only shows a moment - laughter. And this smile is not for love. It's for affection. According to normal human morality, Yanagida Kiriko should have personal feelings, right? For example, Keiichi Abe's understanding of love? We even find that when Keiichi Abe almost hopelessly gains the love of Kiriko Yanagida, he has to painstakingly advise her not to take revenge on another innocent woman, the lawyer mistress of Keizo Otsuka (Rintaro Mikuni), and Yanagida Kiriko's expression is cold and dismissive.
Kiriko Yanagida destroyed Zimi and Keiichi Abe. This should be something that Kiriko Yanagida personally did not expect, right? From a more benign point of view, Yanagida Kiriko personally does not want to have such a life and emotions? Her love at that time had not yet blossomed.
From a reasonable point of view, Yanagida Kiriko's approach seems clumsy and more than worth the loss, but as a literary film is still very successful, through Yanagida Kiriko, it shows that the weak may take a self-destructive approach in the face of extreme grief, or even a way to seek justice. In the end, Yanagida Kiriko disappeared into the misty woods, probably indicating that she had taken revenge, very confused, and did not know where to go and how to live. In short, her behavior looks more resentful. Because, because of her poverty and humble status, Otsuka's lawyer refused to help her, causing her brother to be killed. The public's coldness to reality sometimes really needs to be vented through literary and artistic forms.
The film "Flag of fog /霧の旗" (1977) Hong Kong VCD edition cover
And an upright young man like Abe, although he sympathizes and even wants to sacrifice himself to help her, he can't feel the pain of the person concerned after all.
The self-destruction of Kiriko Yanagida is definitely self-annihilation. And her deliberate revenge belongs to a more feminine instinct. Because it can be seen from the film plot that Yanagida Kiriko used against lawyer Otsuka Kinzo, the method of sacrificing hue all the way. In fact, Kiriko Yanagida is not the so-called winner of the revenge case, in fact, she and Lawyer Otsuka Kenzo finally lost both. Not only her and Otsuka, but also Otsuka's three mistresses, but also Keiichi Abe, who has just opened her heart. The entire film was spared, and all were destroyed. The real destruction lies beneath the starless Tokyo night sky.
"Flag of the Mist" is an adaptation of a speculative novel, the reasoning plot in it, so it can not be ignored, the film in laying out the story at the same time, but also layer by layer to promote why Yanagida Kiriko's brother is not the murderer, so that after the mistress was arrested, why will be suspected, the author is very thoughtful analysis, like a detective report.
This speculative novel also has its own limitations of the times, Matsumoto Kiyoharu was a writer in the 1950s and 1960s, when there was no DNA test, scientific verification was also very crude, and there would be no CCTV evidence, if you use the current technology to criticize his novel to refute, it is really unfair to him. Therefore, his reasoning about the murder is not 100% accurate, and it is a waste of his effort to criticize his work only by focusing on the integrity of the detective's perspective.
Promotional photo for the movie "Flag of fog/霧の旗" (1977).
After reading Kiyoharu Matsumoto's novels, I always have a little expectation for the new generation of mystery novel writers, and I often exchange disappointment. Perhaps so, is it still impossible to like the works of Minato Jia miao, such as the evil of the two male students in "Confessions" (2010), and even the dramatic and extreme retaliatory actions of the female teacher, has human nature fallen to this point? The darkness of human nature, maybe we can't avoid it, maybe there are some people in the world who are mad and have no empathy at all, but they are too noisy and exaggerated, and they are divorced from the real life.
【Kiyoharu Matsumoto: A prolific writer who became a late bloomer】
Kiyoharu Matsumoto is a prolific writer who only attended elementary school and became a late bloomer. Before the age of 40, he lived a repressive life of poverty, he wrote an autobiography "Half Life", which described the 40 years of poverty and bitter life to the fullest, making people read tears; after the age of 40, Matsumoto Kiyoharu's literary talent was excavated and developed, he successively wrote "Pota", "The Road of the Silent Beast", "Deep Currents", "Flag of Fog", "Yellow Terroir", "The Price of Women", "Elopement", "The Popular Colors of Death", "New", "Potential Killing Intention", "The Murder House of the Turtle Hotel", "The Murder House of the Turtle Hotel", "The Murder House of the Turtle Inn". The Painter Who Murdered Lover", "Forehead and Teeth", etc., more than 200 works.
The movie "Flag of mist/霧の旗" (1965) (Doubly Reward Sengoku version) japanese video version of the cover
In addition to writing speculative fiction, he also wrote reportage "The Black Mist of Japan" and "The Excavation of Showa History", and engaged in the study of ancient doubtful case materials, and wrote academic monographs such as "Ancient Doubtful History" and "Travel History Doubt". In addition, Matsumoto Kiyoharu was an art connoisseur, and although he only studied until elementary school, he relied on himself to learn foreign languages and speak fluent English, showing his versatility in the field of literature and art.
Based on his novel, the film "Sandware/Sandware" (1974) became a sensation in Japan and also swept the world film industry. In his later years, he summed up his own writing experience, saying: "Writers are not special beings, but ordinary citizens, if they have privileged thoughts, do not they seek their own ends?" "It is precisely because he has personally experienced 40 years of arduous training that he is particularly sympathetic to the little people in his works.
Matsumoto Kiyoharu often recalled his past life after becoming famous, writing: "Those dreams are almost all dreams of the era of poverty or the era of the army. There is no rice left, what will I take to my family tomorrow? In the barracks of North Korea, I fidgeted about how my family lived... I woke up in the morning in a cold sweat. This imprint of time and life made his creation present a kind of "common people's nature", not only representing Japanese civilian literature ideologically, but also striving to make his works close to ordinary people, that is, writing for ordinary people. Compared with the Edogawa Andyo Shoshi and Yokomizo Masashi, Matsumoto Kiyoharu's style is more approachable and popular, which is loved by readers from all walks of life.
Kiyoharu Matsumoto's novel Kiriyuki No Kiyoki/霧の旗 is a japanese shincho bunko edition
Some people once thought that Matsumoto Kiyoharu was a pure literary novelist, and later became a speculative novelist, which was greatly regretted, however, Matsumoto Kiyoharu had his own opinion, he believed that the readership of pure literature was too narrow, and only scholars should study it. Whether it is pure literature or popular literature, the final determination of its value must be tested by a wide range of readers, which is why Matsumoto Kiyoharu's work has a wide readership, becoming the third master of detective fiction after Arthur Cothur Cothur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and Agatha Christie (1890-1976).
Cover of the special issue of the film "Flag of Mist/霧の旗" (1977) published by Japan's "Modern Picture" magazine