Gate of Hell

Japan in the twelfth century. A revolt breaks out at court and the emperor's family must be got away. A woman agrees to act as a decoy; she rides in the carriage dressed as a noblewoman and puts herself in danger. The samurai guarding her is Moritoh. After the revolt is put down Moritoh asks for that woman as his reward. Kesa is married. Her husband is a palace guard and both of them refuse. Moritoh does not give up. The pressure grows and the woman looks for a way out. What she finds is what nobody expected. Teinosuke Kinugasa directs. Kazuo Hasegawa plays Moritoh and Machiko Kyo plays Kesa. It is a Japanese production made by the Daiei studio. The source is a play by Kan Kikuchi. The film won the grand prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. In America it took an honorary Oscar as the best foreign film of the year and also won the Oscar for colour costume design; the costumes were by Sanzo Wada. Colour is an instrument inside the narrative; Eastmancolor was used and the reds are deliberately dense. The matter it treats is insistence; Moritoh is less ill intentioned than convinced that his own desire is a right. The narrative builds Kesa not as a victim but as the side that decides. Its limit is style; the acting is formal, the pace slow and the narrative short. Who it is for: viewers who like classical Japanese cinema and period drama. Who it is not for: it is slow, formal, and the ending bitter.