Films

Description

*SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREMIERE*

Returning to the director’s chair after five years, TANAKA Kinuyo collaborated with WADA Natto (wife and primary screenwriting collaborator of director INCHIKAWA Kon), to create the historical melodrama The Wandering Princess. Offered to TANAKA as a vehicle for Daei studio’s top star KYO Machiko (Rashomon), the ambitious project–her first film in colour and widescreen–allowed her the opportunity to expand the scope of her artistic vision in terms of production scale and expressive possibilities.

The film is an adaptation of the best-selling autobiography of HIRO Saga, a Japanese aristocrat who was married to Pujie, the younger brother of the last Chinese emperor Puyi, thus becoming embroiled in the colonial politics of the Japanese empire in Manchuria. By affirming the individual determination of her protagonist to overcome the hardships of war and displacement, Tanaka disrupts the typical narratives of female victimisation and helplessness that dominated post-war cinema of the 50s and 60s.