Lightning
Inazuma

Japan, 1952, 87 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Asian, Drama
Language: Japanese English Sub-Titles

35mm Presentation - The incisive Lightning is Naruse’s second adaptation of a Hayashi novel and another of his lacerating portraits of a deeply flawed family. A frequent Naruse leading lady since 1941, Takamine Hideo plays Kiyoko, the youngest of four siblings, all with different fathers. When Kiyoko resists her siblings’ plans to marry her off to a financially secure baker, she sets off a string of consequences that threatens the family with disintegration. As so often in Naruse’s films, money, or the lack of it, overrides family ties and determines the protagonists’ happiness...or lack of it.

Sponsored by the Japan Foundation
In partnership with Consulate-General of Japan at Denver, UC Denver Live!, Japanese Association of Colorado and Asian American Student Services at UC Denver

DIRECTOR: Mikio Naruse

Also by this director

• 

  Flowing

  Japan , 1956 , 120 min. 35mm Presentation - Long regarded as one of Japanese cinema's preeminent geisha films, Flowing was produced at a point in history when the traditional geisha (not whores, but asexual performers who entertained male clients with singing, dancing and instrumentation) found their way of l... more