an older Japanese man and a woman sit around a table and fish sculpture staring eagerly at a younger woman who looks awayalr

Wife! Be Like a Rose!
(Tsuma yo bara no yo ni)

Screening on Film
Directed by Naruse Mikio.
With Chiba Sachiko, Hanabusa Yuriko, Ito Tomoko.
Japan, 1935, 35mm, black & white, 74 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: The Japan Foundation

Written by Naruse and based on Nakano Minoru's play Two Wives, the lively Toho talkie Wife! Be Like a Rose! won the Kinema Junpo prize and became one of the first Japanese films to receive a theatrical release in the United States. Chiba Sachiko plays office worker Kimiko, whose boyfriend's parents want to meet her estranged father (Maruyama Sadao) before approving their engagement. The visit to her father—who resides with his mistress and their children—forces the self-described modern Kimiko to face her contradictory thoughts about marriage, money and her poet mother (Ito Tomoko), whom she blames for her father's departure. – Kelley Dong

Part of film series

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Floating Clouds… The Cinema of Naruse Mikio

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