The Life of Matsu the Untamed

1943 [JAPANESE]

Action / Adventure / Drama

1
IMDb Rating 7.3/10 10 259 259

father figure drunkenness feudal japan unattainable desire meiji period

Plot summary

Matsugoro is a poor rickshaw driver whose animated spirit and optimistic demeanor make him a favorite of the town. Matsu helps an injured boy, Toshio, and is hired by the boy's parents.

Director

Hiroshi Inagaki Photo
Hiroshi Inagaki

Top cast

Tsumasaburô Bandô Photo
Tsumasaburô Bandô as Matsugoro, aka Matsu
Hiroyuki Nagato Photo
Hiroyuki Nagato as Toshio Yoshioka as a child
Kyôji Sugi Photo
Kyôji Sugi
Ryûnosuke Tsukigata Photo
Ryûnosuke Tsukigata
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
729.17 MB
962*720
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 19 min
Seeds 1
1.32 GB
1440*1078
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 19 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by boblipton 9 / 10

Generosity

Tsumasaburô Bandô is a rickshaw man, a wild one who loves to fight and takes slights poorly. Yet he has a good heart, and when Hiroyuki Nagato is injured, he carries him home and then to the doctor. The boy's mother, Keiko Sonoi offers him money, but he refuses; even a poor man has his pride, and helping children is a duty. The boy's father invites him home, and treats him to many drinks, but dies, and Bandô helps to raise him to a man.Hiroshi Inagaki directed this movie, and it is a sentimental pip, with Bandô giving an exuberant performance of a man with a generous heart and little in the way of words to express he. Instead, he shows it by the enthusiasm with which he throws himself into situations, whether it's fighting, on winning a foot race, or festival drumming. Inagaki later remade this in color with Toshiro Mifune in Bandô's role, but this version in better.
Reviewed by richardchatten 9 / 10

Matsu the Untamed

A beguiling anecdote set during the Meiji Era and gracefully shot by one of Japan's leading cameramen, Kazuo Miyagawa.Although described by Japanese film authority Alex Jacoby as "one of the finest and most moving films produced during the war years", it tends to be neglected in favour of it's veteran director's 1958 remake in colour and 'scope, dismissed by Donald Richie as "not nearly so good".Although heavily censored and truncated after the war, at least it survives; unlike leading lady Kekio Sonoi who received a lethal dose of radiation at Hiroshima.
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