Shindo: Zempen Akemi no maki

First of two parts shows Gosho's sensitive hand with story and character, though the technique of Japanese sound film making still lacks assurance.

The two girls accompany a couple of visitors at the lakeside resort. Takamine has found her ideal mate Uehara, though her father wants her to marry a diplomat. They can't push ahead with the marriage because he has a two year posting to France.

Back in Tokyo Tanaka (a particularly appealing performance) is a product of the new liberal Japan and exchanges visits with Sano, though his mother forbids such activity as contrary to the tradition of his late father. Things don't work out well there in the cliff hanger ending to part one.

The picture of Japan is striking mixing rickshaws and telephones, kimonos and western clothing and furnishings and where Meiji chocolate is still a novelty and a photo of Elizabeth Bergner on the wall draws comment. A few of the players who will have a large profile in Japanese cinema make appearances.

Kinuyo Tanaka and Hiroko Kawasaki are the daughters of Viscount Tatsuo Saitô. He is a liberal and allows the girls to have their own ways, although he wants them to get married -- unsurprisingly to a pair of well-connected boring guys in the Diplomatic service. But they meet and fall in love with two upper-middle class guys, Miss Tanaka with Shûji Sano, who is an executive in a manufacturing firm, and Miss Kawasaki with Shin Saburi, an artist who is going to Paris to study. When Sano's mother finds Miss Tanaka has been visiting her son while she is away, she assumes she is some lower-class girl and snubs her, to Sano's amusement and despair.

With Hideko Takamine as the kid sister of the two leading ladies, and Chishu Ryu in a small role, it's another well-produced movie, glossy from director Heinosuke Gosho. It is, however, the first half of a two-part soaper; even though the two movies are little more than a couple of hours, it was fairly common for such movies to be issued in two parts.