Yoshiwara (1937 film)

Yoshiwara
Directed by	Max Ophüls
Written by	Arnold Lipp Wolfgang Wilhelm Max Ophüls
Based on	Yoshiwara by Maurice Dekobra
Produced by	Samuel Epstein Herman Millakowsky
Starring	Pierre Richard-Willm Sessue Hayakawa Michiko Tanaka Roland Toutain
Cinematography	Eugen Schüfftan
Edited by	Pierre Méguérian
Music by	Paul Dessau
Production company	Milo Film
Distributed by	Compagnie Cinématographique de France
Release date	22 October 1937 (1937-10-22)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

Yoshiwara is a 1937 French historical drama film directed by Max Ophüls and starring Pierre Richard-Willm, Sessue Hayakawa and Michiko Tanaka. It is based on a novel of the same title by Maurice Dekobra.^[1] It was shot at the Joinville Studios of Pathé in Paris and on location at the Musée Albert-Kahn in Billancourt and in Rochefort-en-Yvelines and Villefranche-sur-Mer. The film's sets were designed by the art directors André Barsacq and Léon Barsacq.

The film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer and a rickshaw man.^[2]

The film was Ophüls' greatest pre-war French financial success.^[3] Yoshiwara proved controversial in Japan where the government objected to the depiction of Japanese brothels and banned it. There was a negative reaction against the two Japanese actors who had starred in the film, and they were labelled as traitors.^[4]

• Pierre Richard-Willm as Lieutenant Serge Polenoff
• Sessue Hayakawa as Ysamo, Kuli
• Michiko Tanaka as Kohana
• Roland Toutain as Pawlik
• Lucienne Le Marchand as Namo
• André Gabriello as Pô
• Camille Bert as Le commandant
• Foun-Sen as Geisha
• Philippe Richard as L'attaché russe
• Ky Duyen as L'agent secret
• Georges Saillard as Le médecin

• Bacher, Lutz. Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios. Rutgers University Press, 1996.
• Goble, Alan. The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter, 1999.
• Seigle, Cecilia Segawa. Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan. University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

• Yoshiwara at IMDb

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