Most Japanese social critics agree Kenji Mizoguchi’s final film, “Street of Shame” played a crucial role bringing about the legal criminalization of prostitution. It was an issue that held personal significance for the auteur, due to the fate of Suzuko, an older sister sold into a geisha house when their father’s business plan to capitalize on the shorter-than-expected Russo-Japanese War collapsed. Echoes of his family experience can also be heard throughout Mizoguchi’s 4K restored masterpiece, “Ugetsu,” which opens this Friday at Film Forum.
“Ugetsu” is based on two stories drawn from Akinari Ueda’s "Ugetsu Monogatari," a collection of traditional Ming-era Chinese supernatural tales adapted to pre-Edo era Japan, but you would hardly know it from first 30 minutes or so.
