Devised by the Directors Guild of Japan, “The Moon Has Risen” is based on a screenplay jointly written by Yasujiro Ozu and Ryosuke Saito, and is Kinuyo Tanaka’s second feature film as a director. She is also a member of the cast for this enchanting love story told from a uniquely female perspective, which follows the romantic fortunes of three sisters leading tranquil lives in Japan’s ancient capital Nara during late autumn. Tanaka’s direction is enhanced by the participation of several of Ozu’s regular collaborators, such as Chishu Ryu who plays the sisters’ father, and Takanobu Saito who composed the score. Other main cast members include Hisako Yamane, Yoko Sugi, Mie Kitahara, and Shoji Yasui, who adopted the name of his character in this film, his motion picture debut, as his stage name.
A pioneering woman in a studio system that actively discouraged female directors, Kinuyo Tanaka made six groundbreaking features over the course of a decade, dismissing the passivity assigned to most female protagonists of the era and creating a small, radical oeuvre of progressive heroines. Though she has long been renowned as an iconic actor, having starred in films by directors such as Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Mikio Naruse, Tanaka’s own work as a filmmaker has been conspicuously absent from most studies of Japanese cinema.
“A breezy romantic comedy.”
-Kelley Dong, MUBI Notebook
