Story of a Prostitute (1965) on Netflix
Disappointed by her lover's marriage, Harumi travels to a Manchurian outpost to work at a comfort house. There the adjutant Narita commandeers her, but she is drawn to his aide, Mikami.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/101,804 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Harumi works as a prostitute in the city. When the man she loves marries a woman he does not love, she travels to a Japanese outpost in Manchuria and joins a comfort house, a brothel kept for soldiers at the front, where she is expected to serve hundreds of them. Narita, the adjutant in command, commandeers her. Harumi is instead fascinated by Mikami, the adjutant's aide, and comes to love him. He is indifferent to her at first, which makes her angry, and the adjutant abuses and manipulates her. The two are drawn to each other, an affair that breaks the code binding soldiers and prostitutes alike.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Story of a Prostitute (1965)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Suzuki could not film on location in China, so the production used studio sets and lookalike locations in Japan instead.
- Seijun Suzuki, who had served as a soldier in the war, drew on his firsthand experience at the wartime front for the Nikkatsu adaptation, and said in 2005 that the film's conditions and the actual ones "probably aren't that different."
- Seijun Suzuki was at regular odds with his studio Nikkatsu while making the film: he was handed projects and expected to direct them in workmanlike fashion, but kept adding stylistic nuances and levels of realism the studio resented.
