I saw a 101-minute version of this Japanese silent film in October 2005 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile, Italy; the print was restored (from a nitrate original) in 2004 by Professor Yoneo Ota of Osaka's University of Visual Arts. At Sacile, the film was screened with its original Japanese intertitles, but individual attendees had the option of hiring headphones, enabling us to hear real-time English translations spoken by a native Japanese at the rear of the auditorium. I plumped for this option, but I found the headphones uncomfortable and the translator's voice unpleasant, so I only sporadically used the headphones ... and I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translations. If this review contains any errors, I'm sure my Internet detractors will speak up loud and clear.
Shigeru Mori is a handsome young engine-driver, assigned to one of Japan's most important railway lines. While driving an express train packed with commuters, he encounters an unmanned runaway locomotive on the line. Collision is imminent, but Mori has time to dive out of the engine cab and save his own life. Instead, he courageously endangers himself to stop the runaway locomotive ... thus saving the lives of his hundreds of passengers. Among the grateful passengers is the beautiful Omiyo, who performs with a circus troupe.
Time passes, during which Mori receives an award for his valour from the minister of railways (Takaichi Yamamoto). The heroic Mori remains humble, living in a modest flat and remaining on good terms with his landlord (Shiro Osaki) and the landlord's young son Shoichi (Masatoshi Nakamura).
One dark night, Mori encounters Omiyo again: this time she is at the brink of despair, and on the verge of suicide. Mori invites the destitute woman to move in with him, and one thing leads to another.
The hot-tempered manager of the circus has been lusting for Omiyo, even though he's married; she fled the circus in order to avoid his advances. While Mori is working his shift as an engine-driver, the circus showman arrives at Mori's lodgings and tries to force himself upon Omiyo. Young Shoichi manages to warn Mori. (Why doesn't the kid call the police?)
SPOILERS COMING. The film has deftly established that Mori's sense of duty outweighs all his other priorities: he is committed to completing his train run, and cannot desert his post to rescue Omiyo! If Mori's train does not keep to its schedule, it will conflict with the run of the express train bound for Tokyo. However, during the engine's run, Mori has a strange premonition: the Tokyo express has been caught in a storm. Rounding a curve, Mori discovers that this has happened: the Tokyo express was caught in a landslide; the passengers are safe, but the rubble is impassable and Mori cannot be expected to complete his run. Abandoning his train, he rushes home ... to discover the circus manager lying dead, stabbed by Omiyo.
Wow! What a movie! I had difficulty imagining any other nation's culture coming up with this story. Japanese audiences of the 1920s would absolutely accept that Mori's duty to his employers (and to the train's passengers) outranks all his other concerns, and therefore they would respect his decision to remain at his post rather than saving Omiyo. If this movie had been made for American or European audiences, the viewers would naturally expect the engine-driver to desert his post -- jeopardising and inconveniencing thousands of people -- to save the damsel in distress.
I normally dislike it when a seemingly paranormal or psychic event occurs late in a movie, as it does here. If the movie hasn't established itself early on as a fantasy or science-fiction story, then the sudden arrival of the supernatural at the story's climax seems too convenient, too contrived. Here again, though, this film works because it's a product of Japan's culture, meant for Japanese audiences: ghosts and other psychic phenomena are more broadly accepted in Japan than in most other cultures, so it's accepted as plausible that Mori (who hasn't been established as psychic) would experience a prophetic vision during a moment of stress. Also, the landslide doesn't seem contrived either: Japan had suffered a serious earthquake in 1923, only a few years before this film's release.
The footage of the 1920s Japanese railways utterly fascinated me, and I wish that this movie could be programmed as a double-feature with the similarly-themed Lon Chaney movie 'Thunder'. (No, I haven't got a print of that one handy.) In the central role here as the dutiful Mori, Koji Shima gives a virile and athletic performance. Through most of the film, Hisako Takihara depicts Omiyo as a weak and needful maiden, pliant and submissive, so it's intriguing (and unexpected) that she manages to fend off her would-be rapist by herself, with fatal results. I'll rate this thrilling and breath-taking movie 10 out of 10. Arigato!
0 out of 1 found this helpful