Setsuko Hara | WatchedThis
Setsuko Hara
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Setsuko Hara (June 17, 1920 – September 5, 2015) was a Japanese actress who appeared in six of Yasujirō Ozu's films, most notably as Noriko in the "Noriko Trilogy": Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), and Tokyo Story (1953). Her other films for Ozu were Tokyo Twilight (1957), Late Autumn (1960), and finally The End of Summer in 1961. She was born Masae Aida in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture. She came to prominence as an actress at an early age, in the 1937 German-Japanese co-production Die Tochter des Samurai (Daughter of the Samurai), known in Japan as Atarashiki Tsuchi (The New Earth), directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami. She also starred in films by Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, and other prominent directors. She was called "the Eternal Virgin" in Japan and is a symbol of the golden era of Japanese cinema of the 1950s. She suddenly quit acting in 1963 (the same year as Ozu's death), and led a secluded life in Kamakura, refusing all interviews and photographs. Her last major role was Riku, wife of Ōishi Yoshio, in the 1962 film Chushingura. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of the 2001 movie Millennium Actress. Description above from the Wikipedia article Setsuko Hara, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Searing Wind
Set in wartime at the Yawata Steel Works in Tobata, Yawata, and Kokura cities in Fukuoka Prefecture, the film depicts people taking on the evil blast furnaces that prevent increased production. The film was shot on location at the actual Yawata Steel Works for an extended period of time, and special effects were created using a miniature blast furnace that closely reproduces the actual one.
Kin no tamago: Golden Girl
Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed photographs that her cousin had sent. When another actress falls ill she is given the role instead. Her first film is a success propelling the young actress to popularity, her own fans, money and a house. While everything looks dandy from the outside not all is well within the family however.
Late Spring
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.
Late Autumn
A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.
The Idiot
A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.
The End of Summer
The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.
Shirayuki sensei to kodomo tachi
The film centers a compassionate teacher (Setsuko Hara) who teaches at a Tokyo grade school where students curse and gamble. The school has a pond on-premises that she's in charge of and cares for. The pond holds a number of carp, but someone is snatching them. The teacher forms a special bond with a child who lives in abject poverty.
No Regrets for Our Youth
After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.
Chûshingura
After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
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