Song of Home (1925)
Mizoguchi’s 30th film is the earliest surviving example of his work, and his only film of the 1920s to survive complete. Song of Home finds the director already concerning himself with the collision of traditional and modern values. The film is structured around the contrast of two country-bred boys: a coach driver who has never left his home, and a student who returns from Tokyo with city-slicker affectations and Western jazz records. Produced by the Ministry of Education, the film has a simplistic lesson-plan at its heart, but what lingers in the mind after viewing are its more ineffable qualities: The dulcet, lyric, evocation of a disappeared rural past.
Director:
Kenji Mizoguchi
Writer:
Ryunosuke Shimizu
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Shigeru Kido as Naotaro Takeda |
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Masujirô Takagi as Naotaro's father |
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Sueko Ito as Naotaro's mother |
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Mineko Tsuji as Okinu |
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Kentaro Kawamata as Junichi Okamoto |
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Shiro Kato as Junichi's father |
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Shizue Matsumoto as Junichi's mother |
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Michiko Tachibana as Taro Maesaka |
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Hiromichi Kawata as Elementary school principal |
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Ichirō Shibayama as School inspector |
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Yutaka Mimasu as American scholar |
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Fusako Hoshi as |
| Directing | Kenji Mizoguchi | Director |
| Writing | Ryunosuke Shimizu | Screenplay |
| Camera | Tatsuyuki Yokota | Director of Photography |
