The Shape of Night (1964) User Reviews

Yoru No Henrin

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 14 May 2024]

Yoshie Nomoto (Miyuki Kuwano) is a young and naive woman from the countryside who has come to the big city and fallen for Eiji Kitami (Mikijiro Hira), a young gangster who pushes her into a life of ill repute. But when we first meet her, she's already been living this life for some time and despite Hiroshi Fujii (Keisuke Sonoi) thinking he can save her from it, it seems like she's trapped forever.

Directed by Noburo Nakamura, The Shape of Night is a gorgeous film, one that is filled with the most lush colors and a filmmaking style that makes the heart sing. Speaking of the heart, this proves that love can't stop an unhappy ending, but such is how it works sometimes in the movies.

Yoshie loves Eiji, no matter how harsh the life he has led her into. There's a harrowing scene where his bosses take advantage of her and he must watch. It's not an easy scene to sit through, which is something one can say for the drama of this entire film.

A Rediscovered Classic

[Video_Store_Dirtbag · 9/10 · 25 April 2024]

With brilliant colors and a poetic tone, Noboru Nakamura's The Shape of Night tells the story of a young woman, played by the mesmerizingly beautiful Miyuki Kuwano, who falls for a handsome yakuza whose boses force her into a life of prostitution. Doomed lovers in a neon city, the pair become trapped in a spiral towards unescapable tragedy.

Filled with melancholy blues and violent reds, the gorgeous cinematography is a stark contrast to the brutal images on screen.

Like the work of Wong Kar-Wai (which this film has been compared), The Shape of Night is like a visual poem. A lyrical and tragic journey with an ending that hits hard. If you enjoy WKW's work, check this out.

The HD transfer on the Radiance Films disc is excellent.

fluorescent light

[christopher-underwood · 8/10 · 8 June 2024]

Not a lovely film but sad instead and full of horrible men, as often in Japan with the yakuza, but it is a rather unusual film. This begins with a prostitute, Yoshie (Miyuki Kuwano) in Shinjuku, the familiar Tokyo nightlife district area and picked up by Fujii (Keisuke Sonoi) and they go for tea. Later on the story flashes back to when she was six years younger and happily working in a bar and she meets up with a guy and that is Eiji (Mikijiro Hira). She thought that Fujii was a customer, although he begins to fall in love but instead she gets in with the hoodlum, Eiji, how started her on the street as she gradually tells her story to Fujii. As I say it is very sad but we almost know what is going to happen and we have seen it many times. This is rather long and slow but beautifully done with amazing saturated colours as the cinematographer says with 'neon, electric light, fluorescent light' are wonderful and even when they fade, not black but blue. Towards the end we know it is going to be obvious although there is a surprise. Mijuki Kuwano is beautiful and I had seen her in Cruel Story of Youth (1960) full of nasty men, of course, but that was in b/w (directed by Nagisa Oshima only his second film) and both the films are of Japanese New Wave, which begins with people like Oshima and almost ends with this colour film.