Shiosai

On a small island in Ise Bay, where ancient legends still live, Shinji, a ruggedly tanned young man of the sea, meets Hatsue, a girl with cool eyes. Shinji's heart suddenly begins to stir. Yukio Mishima, inspired to write a work about 'gods' that overlaps with ancient Greek imagery, chose Utajima, a beautiful fishing village unaffected by the city, as the setting. The freshness of their bodies and the course of their love affair are blended with the dazzling sun and sparkling sea... Hatsue is seen naked and out of shame tells Shinji to get naked as well. When Shinji is naked, Hatsue tells him to "Jump across the fire to me. Come on ! If you'll jump across the fire to me..." Shinji jumped over the fire and hugged each other naked, but Hatsue said, "It's bad for now. Because I've decided it's you I'm going to marry, and until I do, it's really bad." This famous scene is so nice. Second film adaptation : 1964. Director : Kenjiro Morinaga. Starring: Sayuri Yoshinaga and Mitsuo Hamada.

On a small island, where the fishing boats go out daily in the season for octopuses, and the women dive for pearls, Mitsuo Hamada is a fisher working on another man's boat. He takes care of his mother and younger brother. He saves his money so that he may one day own his own boat.

Everyone knows everyone else's business, of course, and Kenjirô Ishiyama's pretty, unmarried daughter, Sayuri Yoshinaga, returns to the island to take care of her father, and of course, dive for pearls. The two young people meet and fall in love very simply. They're good people, and look forward to getting married some day, even that Ishiyama has a husband already picked out for her. Somehow a rumor starts that they are sleeping together, and Ishiyama forbids Miss Yonishaga from seeing her preferred boy. So they start a secret correspondence, with letters carried by sympathetic islanders.

It's a very simple story, and if it hadn't been based on a book by Yukio Mishima, it probably wouldn't have been made. In fact, it was remade; this is the second screen version, sustained by casual-looking camerawork, simple, straightforward performances, and the nostalgia for a simpler way of life.