Love New and Old (1961) User Reviews

A mother and daughter in love

[pscamp01 · 6/10 · 4 March 2014]

This early Shinoda film is about a generation gap between a widow and her daughter who has just graduated from high school. The daughter, who is having romance problems of her own, is appalled when the mother gets a suitor. Meanwhile the mother's new boyfriend has a secret of his own. Among other things, this movie is a look at the changing attitudes between the generation in postwar Japan. The mother is a popular kouta (a form of traditional Japanese song) performer and instructor while the daughter wears Western clothes and listens to rock and roll and jazz. (The literal translation of the movie's title--Shamisen and Motorcycle-- more accurately describes this conflict.) The cinematography, soundtrack and acting in this movie are all so good that it seems almost churlish to complain about the story itself. It isn't particularly bad but it isn't all that interesting either. But it's too Shinoda's credit (the script apparently was forced on him by the studio) that everything else about the movie is so good that he makes it worth watching anyway.

A Semi-Blast From The Past!

[net_orders · 6/10 · 11 March 2018]

LOVE OLD AND NEW / SHAMISENS AND MOTORCYCLES (Lit.] (SHAMISEN TO OOTOBAI). Viewed on Streaming. Dubbing/looping = four (4) stars; subtitles = four (4) stars; cinematography/lighting = (3) stars. Director Masahiro Shinoda packs a lot into an accelerated soaper including: traditional music and fast machines; generational conflict yet duplication; single parenting and parental identity; jazz dance music (no rock and roll); unrealistic expectations from mother/daughter bonding; and parental (and teenage) dating and sex. Shinoda wraps things up (more or less) with a telegraphed unhappy dual ending. The plot involves a widowed mother and shamisen koura (ballad) teacher (with a local TV following) ending up with her daughter (a high schooler about to graduate) who belongs to an "upper-middle class" biker gang being hospitalized after a serious, high-speed crash (on her boyfriend's cycle) where the orthopedic surgeon turns out to be the widow's first lover who had disappeared almost 20 years ago into the Pacific War and is the real father of his new patient (got all that?!). Most of this is described and delivered using machine-gun (or motorcycle) speed line deliveries (see below). The film starts and ends with high-speed biker riding. Stunt performers do some incredible things in these shots. Actors and especially actresses playing teenagers have obviously left their teen years behind! Leading actresses Miyuki Kuwano (complete with puppy-dog eyes) as the daughter and Yumeji Tsukioka as her mother standout. Dialog during most of the film occurs at, perhaps, the most rapid pace to date for any Japanese film. It is also stuffed with contemporary slang and obsolete words plus performer use a Western dialect. If you consider yourself fluent in Japanese, try this and see if you can pass! Most viewers, however, likely will be heavily dependent on the subtitles which are usually short enough to be read in a glance. Sound dubbing and looping are outstanding. The latter provides totally clear and naturally sounding voices even on motorcycles! Cinematography (2.35:1, color) and lighting are okay except that the camera usually bounces around during road/street shots. Composition of many wide-screen scenes could be a bit enhanced. Sure it's way out of date and a typical Shochiku programmer. But it's fun to watch nonetheless. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

An early example of Shinoda's appealing stylistic and thematic range and curiosity

[philosopherjack · 16 December 2022]

Masahiro Shinoda's early feature is known in English both as Love New and Old and as Shamisen and Motorcycle - as it happens, a mash-up of both those titles might encompass the film's meeting of romantic, generational and stylistic conflicts. The opening stretch holds every promise of a brash youth movie, defined by bright colours and lively exchanges and impulsive motorcycle adventures - an accident brings this to a halt, landing its teenage protagonist Hatsuko in hospital. She develops an affectionately spiky rapport with her genial doctor, Kuroyanagi; he in turn is an old flame of her widowed mother Toyoeda, a teacher of traditional "kouta" singing, with whom he soon starts a new relationship. An unusually strong-willed and pesky protagonist, Hatsuko is at best passive-aggressive in her reaction to this, and often downright hostile, ultimately forcing Kuroyanagi to withdraw from seeing her mother, a capitulation that ultimately serves no one's interests. For all the movie's evidence of a newly modernizing Japan, the legacy of the war (a key factor in keeping her mother and Kuroyanagi apart back then) remains prominent, and traditional class- and gender-based expectations shape actions and attitudes as much as they ever did, even if in different ways (for example, despite the culpability of Hatsuko's boyfriend Fusao for her injuries, his wealthy parents look down on her and her mother, shunning them both in the hospital). It's nicely summed up in the ending, in which Hatsuko gains a greater awareness of the complexity of things, then rapidly pivots into receiving a proposal from Fusao which is as much a directive as it is romantic, with a final shot as heavy with peril and the memory of past errors as with excited anticipation. The film certainly demonstrates, in somewhat embryonic form, Shinoda's appealing stylistic and thematic range and curiosity, which would yield career peaks as diverse as Pale Flower and Silence.