Young People (1937 Japanese film)

In a Christian girls' school in Japan's northern Hokuriku region, young teacher Mr. Mazaki is impressed by pupil Keiko's artistic talent and unorthodox behaviour. Keiko was raised alone by her mother, bar madam Hatsu, and does not know who her father is. Mazaki's colleague Ms. Hashimoto senses the mutual affection between Mazaki and Keiko and warns him not to get involved, while at the same time showing an interest in Mazaki herself. After a school excursion, Keiko makes up a story that she and Mazaki had an affair and that she is pregnant by him. The film closes with Ms. Hashimoto advising Keiko to rise above herself and defy her status as an illegitimate child treated unfairly by society.

• Shizue Natsukawa as Sumi Hashimoto
• Den Obinata as Mazaki
• Haruyo Ichikawa as Keiko Enami
• Yuriko Hanabusa as Hatsu, Keiko's mother
• Chieko Inoue as Landlady
• Chitose Hayashi as Hashimoto's stepmother
• Tomoko Itō as Ms. Yamagata

Shirō Toyoda's film was the first of several adaptations of Yōjirō Ishizaka's novel[4] and successful both with critics and the audience. Film historian Donald Richie rated it as one of the most important adaptations of works of the junbungaku ("pure literature") movement, which provided the source for works of directors like Toyoda, Heinosuke Gosho and Yasujirō Shimazu.[5] In her book on literary adaptions in Japanese cinema, Keiko I. McDonald pointed out that the film not only left the novel's human conflicts unsolved, but also completely omitted Hashimoto's radical left-wing leanings, which might or might not have been owed to censorship issues.[6]

• Young People at IMDb