Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950) User Reviews

Interesting Mizoguchi's Film

[fa-oy · 8/10 · 20 September 2011]

Yuki, the main character in this film, is married to Naoyuki Shinano, who often mistreats her and humiliates her. She doesn't love him though, she secretly loves Koto, a friend who recommends her to abandon her husband. But she can't abandon him because in her inner self, she enjoys being with him, and finds really difficult to think of leaving him.

Here you'll find every usual aspect from a Mizoguchi film, although compared to his other films, this one would fit in his minor efforts.

The amazing camera shots are worth watching here. If by any chance you find this film boring, you should at least watch the final scene, there are some really good scenarios over there that are amazingly shot.

From the acting you cant't expect less, it is usually good in this kind of Japanese films.

So, if you are a Mizoguchi fan, you'll like this movie, or at least you'll find it interesting, just as I did.

Touching melodrama

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 16 November 2020]

"I can't understand Madame's behavior. She lets her husband treat her like a pleasure girl. There are limits to submission."

A post-war Japanese melodrama that shows just how unfair the patriarchy is, and the sad life of a woman, Madame Yuki (played touchingly by Michiyo Kogure). In a nutshell, she's trapped in a loveless marriage to a profligate drinker; both of them have lovers and live apart, but when her father dies, they come together and conflict results. She wants a divorce, but he won't release her. She starts up an inn at the suggestion of her lover, but her husband wants to take it from her and give it to his mistress (! Grrr). It's tough for her to break out of a toxic entanglement, both legally and emotionally.

It was a little surprising to me in how explicit the references to sex were. Nothing is shown, but the husband dominating her, humiliating her in front of a servant, bringing over other "belles" for the two of them, and his lover encouraging the three of them to sleep together make it clear. Her lover tells her "Your marriage was a mistake; a marriage without feeling," and she sees how destructive her husband is, but confesses that she has a sexual chemistry with him in one of the more eyebrow-raising but honest moments: "Despite my feelings, my body accepts, against me, my husband's love. A demon lives in the female body. Each time I see him, the demon dominates me. My husband knows it very well. I hate him. Or rather, I hate my inner weakness." It's a relationship where the sex makes it even harder for her to leave him; in short, he owns her.

The film spirals a bit in its melodrama over the last half hour, but it was enjoyable to see the husband also being preyed upon in a different way. Director Kenji Mizoguchi also gives us a marvelous shot of Madame Yuki walking up a hill through windblown fog, a scene that seems to capture her struggles perfectly. At just 88 minutes and with its themes that are far from creaky, this is one worth checking out.

Another great film by Mizoguchi

[Tashtago · 8/10 · 2 January 2020]

If you enjoyed other Mizoguchi films like Ugetsu or Sansho the Bailiff then you'll find Portrait of Madam Yuki worth watching. The acting is excellent and it packs an emotional wallop that stays with you. The S/M component of the principle characters is shockingly realistic for it's time and now.

With The Formerly Rich And Powerful, Always Impatience

[boblipton · 7/10 · 9 October 2019]

Michiyo Kogure is adored by all who do not know her. She is the beautiful daughter of a nobleman -- his title and lands stripped from him in the post-war era. She has a dashing husband in Eijirô Yanagi -- who is a wastrel who spends his time elsewhere with his gun-chewing mistress, Yuriko Hamada. She and Ken Uehara have a chaste but supportive relationship -- he tells her what she should do but she can't do it. When her father dies, all that is left is the country estate, which she turns into an inn -- her husband wants to take it from her and give it to Miss Hamada to run.

It's a portrait of decayed nobility in a post-war world, where Miss Kogure tries to live up to the standards of a vanished world, where everyone who doesn't know her is caught up in her glamor. Kenji Mizoguchi's movie from a novel by Seiichi Funabashi is a sad and solemn work, with a satiric edge. In works like LIFE OF OHARU, the character's decline is slow, because the heights are low. Here it's a precipitous plunge.

watch if you like slow tragedies

[Angel_Peter · 2/10 · 21 January 2016]

I would say as the other reviewers that there is some beautiful landscapes in this movie, but I would say entertainment value is not very high at least for me.

The movie is about a woman of noble blood that have an abusive husband that humiliates her all the time. The premise of the movie is also built on she should love a music professor. Problem is just that none of her actions or words ever show any feelings at all for the professor. only his deep love for her shows in the movie.

So you sit the whole movie waiting for what will happen if she finally will pull her act together and divorce her husband or what will happen. And not much does really happen as she just continue to let her husband humiliate her more and more until the end that I will not reveal.

But I think there have been made many much better movies about suppressed women both in Japan and other places already in 1950. You can choose better unless suppressed women movies are your kind of movie.