Karumen junjô su

Lily Carmen (Hideko Takamine ), the exotic dancer first introduced to film audiences in the comedy 'Carmen Comes Home' (1951), is back in Tokyo, living with her friend, fellow dancer, and now single mom, Akemi (Toshiko Kobayashi). Despite her claim not to need men, Carmen falls in love with superficial artist Hajime (Masao Wakahara) who is both 'above her station' and engaged to Chidori (Chikage Awashima), the promiscuous daughter of Kumako Satake, an ambitious right-wing politician (a hilariously obnoxious Eiko Miyoshi). With love comes a self-reappraisal of her scandalous profession, leading to a departure from the stage and in to increasingly ridiculous jobs to support herself, Akemi, and the baby. The whole production is very strange, with vertiginous swings in camera angle and a variety of strange transitions (reminding me of the early days of Powerpoint). The film parodies pretentiousness and 'westernism' (notably Hajime's art), social hierarchies, Japanese politics (notably Kumako's self-serving and shrill electioneering) and relationships (compared to Hajime and Chidori, Carmen the stripper seems almost chaste, as perhaps hinted at in some translations of the film's title). The oddest character is Hajime's family's maid (Chieko Higashiyama), who appears to have lost kin to the atomic bomb and now constantly refers to the weapon as if it is responsible for everything that happens to her. The maid (Kumako calls her ''the atomic bomb woman") may have been a parody of the special status accorded 'hibakusha' (atomic bomb survivors) after the war, for which there was some resentment (presumably by people who had suffered equally from the extensive conventional and incendiary bombing) - whatever the reason, hearing 'atomic bomb' as a 'punchline' in a 1952 Japanese film is a bit startling. Hideko Takamine is lovely and captivating as Carmen (as she was in 'Carmen Comes Home') and the rest of the cast are great. The humour is quite dark at times, especially the scenes in which Carmen is trying to convince Akemi to abandon the baby (one reason to do seems to be the child's nose). The ending is a bit abrupt and there is a suggestion that a third 'Carmen' film was to follow that perhaps would have brought the story to a smoother end. Too bad this was not to be, although they are quite different, I enjoyed both of the Carmen films and a third would have been welcome.

I loved this movie! My husband did also. It was such an interesting satire of post-war Japan, interesting and hilarious. It was far easier for us to appreciate this urban setting than it was to appreciate the first Carmen movie, which was set in a village, with Carmen and her friend visiting. It's true that the many plot lines were hard to resolve satisfactorily. A third installment of the story was promised at the end of the film, and it is hard to know whether that was truly intended or a convenient way to close, but it is pointed out in the comments that such a film was probably never made. The slightly unsatisfying ending brings me from a rating of "10" to "9," because the wild ending was funny anyway. One of the commenters here, William Flanigan, posting as net_orders, says that the English subtitles were hard to read on the version he saw in 2016. We saw the version TCM presented in 2022, and the subtitles in that version were just fine, though there are a lot of them and I had to pause a couple of times and rewind a little on my TiVo.

It looks like CARMEN COMES HOME was enough of a success that director Keisuke Kinoshita followed it up, with Hideko Takamine and Toshiko Kobayashi repeating their roles as a couple of ditzy strip-teasers who think they're artists. Some time has passed. Miss Kobayashi has had a baby with a communist, who has abandoned her and Carmen is taking care of her. However, when they are trying to abandon to baby in front of a home inhabited by modern artist Masao Wakahara, Miss Takamine is caught. She falls in love with him, even though he's supposed to marry a divorcee in order to split a three-million-yen dowry offered by her mother, who's running for the Diet in the first post-War election on a platform of spiritual values and rearmament. Mr. Wakahara has just paid off the mother of his illegitimate child,who wants more money, and everyone gets confused with everyone else. Miss Takamine can't strip any more, and every time she gets a job, the wives of her employers keep getting her fired.

The movie looks to have been a troubled production. The script is far more serious than the first movie, with some real contemporary issues mixed into the comedy, and real feminist issues were written into the script, probably to better accommodate Miss Takamine's screen persona. DP Hirosho Kusuda seems to have compensated for the lack of color by shooting almost all the shots at an angle, perhaps to suggest to the audience that the whole movie is cockeyed, and after a hundred minutes of screen time, the movie ends with the promise of a third movie to settle matters -- and I can find no sign of one having been made by any of the principals. Certainly they all worked together again, but on different projects.

There are many good parts of this movie, but I am uncertain whether it is particularly good as a whole. Certainly it is a transition piece, both in terms of Japanese society and the star's career arc, and makes reference to those transitions in the script. The start is heartlessly funny, but the later parts are more problematic for me. It was made two-thirds of a century ago for the Japanese market.

Very funny movie. I did not enjoy that much the first installment in the Karumen's series but this one just hit the spot for me. The actresses are all wonderful. The men are all good too. Women in this movie really call the shots. The main character is wonderful in some of the scenes. It was wonderful to have a sight to old Tokyo. I guess anyone who is interested in Japanese movies, history or just a movie to spend a funny time would enjoy this. I do not understand why I am forced to write 10 lines, specially after the robot spoiled all my paragraphs so here you go, no need to keep on reading because I am just blabbering to comply with that silly condition.

Carmen suffers through a hard life as a stripper when she falls in love with an artist who is engaged to marry a woman with a large dowry who sleeps around. Carmen's pal has a baby from a man who ditched her that never stops crying. Sudo (the artist) deals with an overbearing mother in law who's running for office and a woman after him to pay her off for her own kid he left her with.

This is basically a soap opera of twists set in early 50's post war Japan. It's sort of wacky, sort of dark, sort of awful. Nobody is likeable really and poor Carmen is treated like dirt. I think it was supposed to be light and funny but it's more depressing. Maybe it was the cultural difference at play but the first Carmen movie was much better, and it wasn't that great either. This ends with a to be continued note, but it never was... oh well.