Vingt-quatre prunelles

Mostly unknown and frequently dismissed in the West, this film is often considered by the Japanese to be one of their very best films, if not their best. I concur with the Japanese. I can understand the issues people have with it, namely that it is overly sentimental, but I think it mostly earns the tears that are shed over it. It's a film in the classic teacher genre, like Goodbye Mr. Chips. Hideko Takamine plays Hisako Oishi, a young woman who begins the movie as a first grade teacher on a small island in 1928. Being a small population, she ends up staying with the same students for several years. The film ends in the 1950s, so you kind of know what will probably happen to her male students, and what she and her female students will have to experience. It may be somewhat predictable, but it's incredibly heartbreaking. The film is beautifully made, and filled with Japanese folk songs (strangely, the score of the film is made up of a bunch of Western music, including "Bonnie Annie Laurie" and "There's No Place Like Home"; it's definitely a flaw). Takamine, who starred in several Mikio Naruse films around the same time, is exceptional.

"Years might go by, but the mountain colour never change."

This movie is an excellent work of art by Keisuke Kinoshita.

It starts off with a new teacher being assigned to teach the first grade in a poor village. She is initially rejected from the community, and is gossiped about constantly. However the students she teaches fall in love with her style. One of her tasks is to teach the children to sing. However, instead of teaching school songs or patriotic songs, she teaches them folk songs. Misfortune strikes and she is forced to leave the school, but not before she makes a lasting impression on the children. They will see her again, as a teacher, but not for another five years.

From these humble beginnings a rich story about the poor in Japan before, during, and after World War 2 is shown. We get to know all twelve children ("24 eyes") in the movie, and eventually learn about their fates as adults. We see the equivalent of the "Red Scare" in Japan, and the saddening events caused by World War 2. Although overdramatic, the feelings still feel genuine and even the hardest of people will not be able to resist shedding a tear or two over the fates of the children you grow to love.

I can only ask you to watch the full 3 hours. That is the only way one can truly appreciate the beauty of this film. There is nothing else to be said.

25 years ago I made up my mind I would move to Japan. So I wrote to people in Japan who had lived there for over thirty years, and asked them what would be the #1 movie I should watch that encapsulated the spirit of the Japanese.

They all suggested "24 Eyes".

Now, after having lived in a strictly Japanese environment for five years, and having seen well over thirty Japanese movies, not to mention over a thousand hours of TV shows and animae, it is still the #1 to me.

By today's standards it will seem extremely "G" rated, a little too slow and a bit too long. But for those who want to really understand people, and where they are coming from, I can't think of a better movie to recommend. I wish every culture, particularly those that may be going extinct, would use this movie as a guideline to tell their story.

24 eyes is based on a novel that was written in 1952 by Sakae Tsuboi. It's a story about the life of a school teacher in three different time period (1928 to 1947) of Japan, namely pre- war period, during war, and post war Japan. Sakae was also born in Shodo-shima island like the main character of this movie Ms. Ooishi (Hideko Takamine). The movie has a strong anti-war theme to it as well as showing how tough life was when Japan was still a third world country.

In 1928 new school teacher named Ooishi (her first name is never mentioned in the movie) comes to the satellite school in Shodo-shima island, where there are 12 children. The place is a real country side and Ms Ooishi has a problem with the local customs, but she try's to be a good teacher. One day the children plays a prank and Ms. Ooishi falls into a hole dug by the students. She severs her Achilles tendon and has to take a long leave of absence. But the children wanting to see her travels a long way to see her, braving hunger and loneliness. Ms. Ooishi recovers, but soon she is assigned to the main school. Due to depression, many of her former students has to quit school and go to work. Ms. Ooishi gets married, but she quits being a teacher saying she hates the brain washing pro military education. War starts and many of her students and even her husband dies in the war. Long war ends and Ms. Ooishi returns to the satellite school. Many of her students are the children of her former students. As she gives roll calls, memory hits her hard, and she starts crying. Children not knowing the reason, call her cry baby teacher. Soon old students suggests a class reunion. Her old students, now grown adult gives Ms. Ooishi a bicycle like the one she used to ride to school. Ms. Ooishi cry's again seeing her old students once again.

The movie won the Golden Globe award's best foreign movie, and also won the first place in Japanese movie magazine, surpassing Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai that came out the same year.

Movie tells the life of children living in the country, but it also shows how war affected their lives. In the 1930s, Japan was trying to become one of the great nations. Their role model were United States, France, England, Dutch, and Germany. They saw that other great nations were using colonization to expand their empire, and decided to create their own empire in the name of Great Asian Co-prosperity Region. Japan won the Russo Japanese war and was big headed about their military might. All this worked for Japan to charge head in into militarism. While the Japanese navy who had their over seas envoy knew the foolishness of fighting the allied force, the army headed by Tojo insisted on taking the country to war which had deadly consequence for Japan and its people. The movie shows how very ordinary people got entangled in the tides of time, and young and impressionable people went willingly to war thinking it was patriotism. Now China who was on the receiving end during this war is only a hair trigger away from making the same mistake.

What is most striking about the movie is the innocence people had at the time. Despite their hard life they weren't crooked, or violent. Each character in this movie had an endearing qualities. Keisuke Kinoshita who was perhaps Japan's first gay director was a master at depicting people in their family settings. Hideko Takamine marries the assistant director of this movie Zenzo Matsuyama a year after this movie was made.

All this makes this one of a kind memorable movie of all time. Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it.

Nearly everyone who rated this film gave it 10/10, and it's easy to see why. This is a wonderful and bittersweet story about a teacher and her first twelve students, the "24 eyes" of the title, on a fairly remote island community. The story sweeps over about 20 years, from the students in the first grade, then the sixth, then as later teenagers, then four years later. The story begins in the late 1920s, and thus spans a turbulent time in Japanese history, which of course impacts greatly on the characters, even on a fairly isolated island.

Hideko Takamine is perhaps my favourite Japanese actress. This luminous and loveable women with the dazzling smile is a joy to behold and, playing the object of much affection from the children (though only sometimes from the adults), creates a wonderful feeling. Man, I wish I'd had her as a teacher in lower primary school.

There's a strong sense of community in this story, which is one of its strong points, but it is not always a positive thing for the characters. The older women gossip, of course, about the 'modern' new teacher, because she rides a bike and wears western clothes.

The director expertly presses all the emotional buttons of the audience. There are some people who detest this sort of thing, but I'm a sucker for it. In the hands of an expert director, and for the purposes of entertainment, there's nothing wrong with being taken on a emotional roller-coaster ride. There are some high points and many sad events in the story, which moves along at a pace which is sometimes leisurely but never dull.

This film is not free of faults. Aside from the very overt emotional manipulation, there are several tunes which are vastly overused. For instance, "auld lang syne" is played at least ten times.

Also, and most surprisingly, Hideko's range is limited. Despite two and a half hours, together with Hideko being the undisputed star, she shows only three expressions during the entire proceedings. Comparison to the superb HAPPINESS FOR US ALONE shows this clearly. In HFUA, Hideko plays a deaf-mute and uses her wonderfully expressive face to full effect.

But these are minor points, and no reason to mark it down from a perfect score. This is a must-see for anyone who loves film.