{ "id": "epsbh04q5v", "slug": "the-downfall-of-osen", "title": "The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features", "label": "Silent feature films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features.yr-1927-2012", "label": "Released 1927 to 2012", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features.yr-1927-2012" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Asia (other) · 1800 to 1945: Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800", "label": "Asia (other) · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千, Orizuru Osen) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1935 Japanese silent drama, his last silent film, adapted from Kyōka Izumi's \"Baishoku Kamonanban\", starring Isuzu Yamada as Osen, released as a sound version with benshi narration.", "snippet": "The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千, Orizuru Osen) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1935 Japanese silent drama, his last silent film, adapted from Kyōka Izumi's \"Baishoku Kamonanban\", starring Isuzu Yamada as Osen, released as a sound version with benshi narration.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-features.yr-1927-2012", "markdown": "# The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千)\n\n**The Downfall of Osen** (折鶴お千, *Orizuru Osen*, also translated as *Osen of the Paper Cranes*) is a 1935 Japanese silent drama film directed by [Kenji Mizoguchi](https://www.edgepedia.org/kenji-mizoguchi), produced by the Daiichi Eiga company, and starring Isuzu Yamada as Osen, a maid who sacrifices herself to fund the education of the young messenger Sokichi, played by Daijirō Natsukawa[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0) • [2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html). The scenario by Tatsunosuke Takashima adapts the 1920 short story \"Baishoku Kamonanban\" (売色鴨南蛮) by the writer [Kyōka Izumi](https://www.edgepedia.org/kyoka-izumi), and the film was photographed by Minoru Miki[2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html). It is regarded as Mizoguchi's final silent feature[3](https://garethsmovies.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-downfall-of-osen.html).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Japanese title | 折鶴お千 (*Orizuru Osen*); English titles include The Downfall of Osen and The Paper Cranes of Osen[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0) • [2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html) |\n| Director / source | Kenji Mizoguchi; scenario Tatsunosuke Takashima from Kyōka Izumi's \"Baishoku Kamonanban\" (1920)[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0) • [2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html) |\n| Production | Daiichi Eiga, 1935; distributed in the Shochiku system[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0) |\n| Release date | 20 January 1935 per Shochiku and Eiga.com; the Silent Era film list gives 10 January 1935[4](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01707/) • [5](https://eiga.com/movie/35371/) • [2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html) |\n| Running time | Reported as 91 minutes (National Film Archive of Japan print), 90 minutes (Eiga.com), 87 minutes (Digital Meme DVD), and 96 minutes (allcinema)[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0) • [5](https://eiga.com/movie/35371/) • [6](https://guilds.silentera.com/video/downfallOfOsenHV.html) • [7](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/131204) |\n| Sound format | Shot silent but released as a \"sound version\" (サウンド版) with recorded narration, music, and effects by the benshi Suisei Matsui[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf) |\n| Survival | A 35mm preservation positive exists; the National Film Archive of Japan holds a 16mm exhibition print[2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html) • [1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story\n\nOsen is a young woman exploited by a ring of unscrupulous dealers operating near the Kanda Myōjin shrine in Tokyo, led by the antiques dealer Kumazawa[4](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01707/) • [9](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026830/). Sokichi, a penniless young man taken in by Kumazawa, is worked for almost nothing, and Osen encourages him[10](https://www.crank-in.net/movietitle/34112). When Kumazawa is arrested after swindling Buddhist monks out of their temple treasures, Osen agrees to help Sokichi finance his dream of attending medical school[9](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026830/). She prostitutes herself to raise the money, and the two live together in a humble room while poverty brings one misfortune after another[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-downfall-of-osen) • [4](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01707/).\n\nThe frame story shows the outcome. Years later Sokichi is a prosperous doctor who has forgotten his benefactor, until the two meet again one night on a rain-swept station platform[12](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/48/22130-the-downfall-ofosen). The title refers to the folded-paper cranes Osen gives Sokichi to urge him to rise high, like a crane in flight; the film's closing moments show a paper crane being breathed into Sokichi's soul as Osen declares that she gives him her soul[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf) • [13](https://filmarks.com/movies/26948).\n\n## The sound version and the benshi\n\n**A transitional sound film.** Although the actors do not speak, the film was released with a recorded soundtrack: narration by the benshi (silent-film narrator) Suisei Matsui, accompaniment music selected by Matsui, and a small amount of sound effect[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf). The National Film Archive of Japan catalogs the surviving print as a talkie on densiti sound film[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0). In practice, theaters did not always play the recorded track; screenings with the sound cut and a live benshi providing the explanation were not uncommon, and modern audiences have most often encountered the film with live benshi narration[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf). The film was advertised at release as the work of a director \"unsurpassed in Meiji-period subjects\"[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf).\n\nA contemporary reviewer notes the film's use of classical music: a frame-story passage set to Mussorgsky's *Night on Bald Mountain* and the tragic ending set to ballet music from Tchaikovsky's *Onegin* material[5](https://eiga.com/movie/35371/).\n\n## Structure and style\n\nThe film opens in the waiting room of Manseibashi station, where the reunited pair recall the past; within that flashback a further, pluperfect episode is inserted before the story returns to its starting point[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf). The Karlovy Vary International Film Archive describes this as a \"daringly convoluted flashback structure\" combined with the richly expressive visuals of a late silent film[12](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/48/22130-the-downfall-ofosen). The film scholar Chikaka Kinoshita has characterized it as a complex text that at times carries semantic opacity, typified by the double flashback of the opening[8](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf).\n\nMizoguchi's camera is active, with dolly moves and whip pans, and the film contains striking set pieces including a crowded Tokyo station waiting for a delayed train, canted angles at a shrine, and double exposures conveying a character's mental breakdown[6](https://guilds.silentera.com/video/downfallOfOsenHV.html) • [3](https://garethsmovies.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-downfall-of-osen.html). Unlike the more fantastical treatment of Mizoguchi's two earlier Izumi adaptations, *Nihonbashi* (1929) and *Taki no Shiraito* (1933), this film commits to realism[10](https://www.crank-in.net/movietitle/34112).\n\n## Cast and production\n\nIsuzu Yamada, then apparently not quite 18 years old, gives what one reviewer calls a powerful, subtle, and varied performance with the dramatic authority of the finest silent screen actresses; her playing separates Osen's story from the many other Japanese films in which a woman sacrifices her life for a man[14](https://japanonfilm.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/downfall-of-osen-paper-cranes-of-osen-orizuru-osen-1935/). The supporting cast includes Mitsusaburō Ramon as Ukiki, Shinzō Shibata as Kumazawa, Eiji Nakano as the professor, Sue Itō as Sokichi's grandmother, and Suisei Matsui himself as the narrator[2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html). Masaichi Nagata produced[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-downfall-of-osen).\n\n## Place in Mizoguchi's work and criticism\n\nThe film was Mizoguchi's third adaptation of Kyōka Izumi, after *Nihonbashi* and *Taki no Shiraito*, and his last silent feature before the full transition to sound[10](https://www.crank-in.net/movietitle/34112) • [3](https://garethsmovies.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-downfall-of-osen.html). Its story of a woman who funds a man's rise, and is ruined, links it to *Taki no Shiraito* and anticipates Mizoguchi's later melodramas of women's sacrifice such as *Osaka Elegy* and *Sisters of the Gion* (both 1936)[13](https://filmarks.com/movies/26948).\n\nScholarship has read the film against the shinpa melodrama tradition it inherits. Kim Hee Kyeong, a scholar of [Japanese literature](https://www.edgepedia.org/japanese-literature) at Chonnam National University, argues that the heroines of *Taki no Shiraito* and *The Downfall of Osen* are not figures of pure pity or love but women whose conduct expresses a strong will to realize their desires and raise their own status, and that money, the decisive means of the man's advancement in both films, is also the instrument by which the heroines' ambitions are finally crushed[15](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART001430802).\n\n## Preservation and home video\n\nA 35mm preservation positive exists, and the National Film Archive of Japan holds a 16mm exhibition positive, black and white, 91 minutes, with the densiti soundtrack[2](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html) • [1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0). The Japanese company Digital Meme released the film in 2007 on DVD in its Talking Silents series, paired with a four-minute fragment of *Tôjin okichi* (1930), with Japanese intertitles, optional English, Chinese, and Korean subtitles, and two benshi soundtracks, one historic and one modern[6](https://guilds.silentera.com/video/downfallOfOsenHV.html). The DVD release also includes a video afterword on Mizoguchi's work by the film historian Tadao Sato[6](https://guilds.silentera.com/video/downfallOfOsenHV.html). The Digital Meme edition carries a benshi performance by Midori Sawato, a prominent benshi active after 1970[3](https://garethsmovies.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-downfall-of-osen.html). A digitally remastered version was screened with live benshi narration at the 10th Kyoto Historica International Film Festival[16](https://cmex.kyoto/2018/10/20/22015/).\n\n## References\n\n1. [折鶴お千, 所蔵映画フィルム検索システム, National Film Archive of Japan](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=224&mode=0)\n2. [Orizuru Osen (1935), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/O/OrizuruOsen1935.html)\n3. [The Downfall of Osen, gareth's movie diary (2012)](https://garethsmovies.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-downfall-of-osen.html)\n4. [〖作品データベース〗折鶴お千, Shochiku](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01707/)\n5. [折鶴お千：作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/35371/)\n6. [The Downfall of Osen, Silent Era Home Video Reviews (Digital Meme 2007 DVD)](https://guilds.silentera.com/video/downfallOfOsenHV.html)\n7. [折鶴お千 (1935), allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/131204)\n8. [川崎賢子「『折鶴お千』：活動弁士によって継承されたサウンド版トーキー」『キネマ旬報』連載21](https://www.bunsei.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/kawasaki21.pdf)\n9. [The Downfall of Osen (1935), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026830/)\n10. [折鶴お千 公開日・上映館・みどころ・キャスト情報, クランクイン！](https://www.crank-in.net/movietitle/34112)\n11. [The Downfall of Osen, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-downfall-of-osen)\n12. [The Downfall of Osen, Film Archive, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/48/22130-the-downfall-ofosen)\n13. [折鶴お千, Filmarks映画](https://filmarks.com/movies/26948)\n14. [Downfall of Osen / Paper Cranes of Osen / Orizuru Osen (1935), Japanonfilm (2019)](https://japanonfilm.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/downfall-of-osen-paper-cranes-of-osen-orizuru-osen-1935/)\n15. [김희경「미조구치 겐지의 영화에 나타난 여성상 -「滝の白糸」와「折鶴お千」을 중심으로-」『日本語文學』44 (2010)](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART001430802)\n16. [〖第10回京都ヒストリカ国際映画祭〗『折鶴お千』デジタルリマスター版, KYOTO CMEX](https://cmex.kyoto/2018/10/20/22015/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent feature films › Released 1927 to 2012*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-downfall-of-osen. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Downfall of Osen is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1935 Japanese silent drama, his last silent film, adapted from Kyōka Izumi's \"Baishoku Kamonanban\", starring Isuzu Yamada as Osen, released as a sound version with benshi narration." }