{ "id": "epmysa9bj2", "slug": "the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum", "title": "The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語)", "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.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1940s", "label": "Drama films 1940s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1940s" } ], "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 Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語, Zangiku Monogatari) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1939 Shochiku film about kabuki actor Kikunosuke and Otoku, the only surviving entry in his performing arts trilogy and his first mature long-take work.", "snippet": "The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語, Zangiku Monogatari) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1939 Shochiku film about kabuki actor Kikunosuke and Otoku, the only surviving entry in his performing arts trilogy and his first mature long-take work.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1940s", "markdown": "# The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語)\n\n**The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum** (残菊物語, *Zangiku Monogatari*) is a 1939 Japanese black-and-white drama film directed by [Kenji Mizoguchi](https://www.edgepedia.org/kenji-mizoguchi), produced by Shochiku's Kyoto studio and released on October 13, 1939[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=832&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=839) • [2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/). Adapted by Yoshikata Yoda and Matsutaro Kawaguchi from a novel by Shofu Muramatsu about the life of the kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke II, it follows a four-year romance across class lines between a young actor and a household servant[3](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048) • [4](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/133747) • [5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/tiff-nfaj202610-4/). The film is regarded as the first full maturity of Mizoguchi's signature long-take style and won the first Education Minister's Award in Japan's Excellent Film Selection[6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum) • [7](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/history/archive/shochiku-history6/).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director | Kenji Mizoguchi (1898–1956)[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=832&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=839) • [8](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000001235.000047048.html) |\n| Production | Shochiku (Kyoto), 1939; 35 mm, black and white, sound film (density track)[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=832&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=839) |\n| Release | October 13, 1939 (Shochiku's database; JFDB lists October 10)[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/) • [3](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048) |\n| Running time | 143 minutes per Shochiku, the National Film Archive of Japan, and Criterion; other databases give 142, 144, 147, or 148 minutes[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/) • [3](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048) • [6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum) |\n| Source | Novel by Shofu Muramatsu about the kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke II[4](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/133747) |\n| Principal cast | Shotaro Hanayagi (Kikunosuke), Kakuko Mori (Otoku), Kokichi Takada, Gonjuro Kawarazaki[6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum) |\n| Honors | First Education Minister's Award in the Excellent Film Selection[7](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/history/archive/shochiku-history6/) |\n| Later versions | Remade in 1956 (Daiei, directed by Ko Sekiguchi) and 1963 (directed by Hideo Ōba)[4](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/133747) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nKikunosuke, the adopted son of the legendary kabuki actor Kikugoro Onoe V and himself a performer of female roles, is praised publicly by everyone around him but secretly mocked as a poor actor who never rehearses[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/) • [6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum). Otoku, the wet nurse of his infant stepbrother, is the only person willing to tell him the truth; moved by her forthrightness, he falls in love with her[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/). In the feudal society of the 1880s, the relationship draws persecution from the women of the household, and Otoku is dismissed. Kikunosuke defies his adoptive father and leaves home, and the two live in poverty on the provincial touring circuit, with Otoku supporting him[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/) • [9](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum-2).\n\nKikunosuke's art eventually improves to the point that his father's circle recognizes it, and he rises in the theater world; the condition is that Otoku must leave him[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/). Their reunion comes only at her deathbed[10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_story_of_the_last_chrysanthemums). Shochiku's synopsis notes that the story develops as Kikunosuke's rebellion against his adoptive father, sustained by Otoku through the years of itinerant life[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/).\n\n## Production background\n\nMizoguchi came to Shochiku's Shimogamo studio in Kyoto in 1939, after passing through Nikkatsu, Daiichi Film, and Shinko Kinema[7](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/history/archive/shochiku-history6/). The film was a literary adaptation: Shochiku's database describes Muramatsu's original as a \"documentary-style novel\" based on the life of the kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke II[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/) • [4](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/133747). Yoshikata Yoda wrote the screenplay, and Matsutaro Kawaguchi was credited with the adaptation[3](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048). The archive record credits Shigeto Miki and Yozo Fuji with cinematography and Hiroshi Mizutani as art director; Mizutani designed sets for many of Mizoguchi's films into the postwar era[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=832&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=839) • [3](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048). Shintaro Shirai produced[3](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048).\n\n## Style and significance\n\n**The long-take style.** Shochiku's database states that Mizoguchi completed his one-scene-one-take method with this film[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/). The National Film Archive of Japan calls it the work in which Mizoguchi's signature long takes achieved their full maturity, with kabuki stage scenes of unusual depth and dynamism and a finale of visual grandeur[5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/tiff-nfaj202610-4/). The [British Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/british-film-institute)'s critic Tony Rayns wrote that the film shows Mizoguchi already the master of unbroken camera movements and intricately organized staging, and singles out a celebrated traveling shot following Kikunosuke and Otoku walking home late at night[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/834221ec-569e-50e8-b4fd-1a59bca5214d/zangiku-monogatari). Film scholar Donald Kirihara, author of *Patterns of Time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s*, recorded that Mizoguchi himself regarded the film as a creative turning point in his career, and noted that few of his films reach more clearly for antecedents in Japanese tradition: the kabuki performance scenes are shot from a fixed camera at the perspective of a theater audience, recalling early Japanese cinema[12](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2024/07/six-asian-films/) • [13](https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/6061330/SPICER_167321.pdf).\n\n**Theme.** [Criterion](https://www.edgepedia.org/criterion) describes the film as a critique of the oppression of women and the sacrifices required of them, set behind the scenes of kabuki theater in the late nineteenth century[6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum). The critic Richard Brody wrote in [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker) that Mizoguchi raises his vision of Japan's subjugation of women to the heights of tragedy[9](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum-2). The Japanese Film Archives project presented the film as the Mizoguchi work that best expresses \"the strength of the spirit of Japanese women,\" a theme the director pursued throughout his life[14](https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/202nd_Japanese_Film_Archives.pdf).\n\n## Place in Mizoguchi's career\n\nThe National Film Archive of Japan identifies the film as the only surviving entry in Mizoguchi's \"performing arts trilogy\" about the theater world[5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/tiff-nfaj202610-4/). It was made during the period in which Mizoguchi, working at Shochiku, became a leading figure in Japanese film; the archive's 2026 exhibition catalog names it, alongside *[The 47 Ronin](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-47-ronin-1941-film)* (1941–42), as proof of that standing[8](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000001235.000047048.html). Mizoguchi is often grouped with [Akira Kurosawa](https://www.edgepedia.org/akira-kurosawa) and Yasujiro Ozu as one of Japan's three most important filmmakers, and the film marks the point at which the long takes and camera movements of his postwar international successes, such as *Ugetsu* (1953) and *Sansho the Bailiff* (1954), first fully appear[6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum).\n\n## Reception and preservation\n\nThe film received the first Education Minister's Award in the Excellent Film Selection, a recognition highlighted in Shochiku's own production history[7](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/history/archive/shochiku-history6/). The BFI's list of a great Japanese film for every year from 1925 onward selects it for 1939, calling it Mizoguchi's most precious prewar film and one of his masterpieces[15](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/great-japanese-film-every-year-from-1925-now). On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 94 percent Tomatometer score from 18 reviews[10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_story_of_the_last_chrysanthemums).\n\nThe National Film Archive of Japan holds a 1939 screening positive of 12,856 feet[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=832&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=839). A digital restoration, listed at 142 minutes on DCP, has circulated in archive programs, with prints provided by Shochiku[5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/tiff-nfaj202610-4/). [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) issued the film on Blu-ray with a restored 4K digital transfer, and around that release the film received its first American theatrical premiere run[6](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum) • [16](https://www.filmcomment.com/deep-focus-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum/).\n\n## Remakes\n\nMuramatsu's story was filmed twice more in Japan: a 1956 Daiei version directed by Ko Sekiguchi and a 1963 version directed by Hideo Ōba[4](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/133747). Shochiku's database records the 1963 film, with Mariko Okada as Otoku, as a re-adaptation of the same original novel[17](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03551/).\n\n## References\n\n1. [National Film Archive of Japan, film record for 殘菊物語](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=832&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=839)\n2. [Shochiku film database: 残菊物語 (1939)](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02163/)\n3. [Japanese Film Database (JFDB): The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10048)\n4. [allcinema: 残菊物語 (1939)](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/133747)\n5. [National Film Archive of Japan, TIFF/NFAJ Classics program: The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, digital restoration](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/tiff-nfaj202610-4/)\n6. [The Criterion Collection: The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum](https://www.criterion.com/films/27729-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum)\n7. [Shochiku film production history, Part 6: 愛染かつら and 残菊物語](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/history/archive/shochiku-history6/)\n8. [Agency for Cultural Affairs press release: exhibition 没後70年 映画監督 溝口健二](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000001235.000047048.html)\n9. [Richard Brody, The New Yorker (2020): The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum-2)\n10. [Rotten Tomatoes: The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_story_of_the_last_chrysanthemums)\n11. [BFI: Zangiku Monogatari (1939)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/834221ec-569e-50e8-b4fd-1a59bca5214d/zangiku-monogatari)\n12. [Jonathan Rosenbaum, Six Asian Films (2024)](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2024/07/six-asian-films/)\n13. [Spicer, analysis of The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, University of Portsmouth](https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/6061330/SPICER_167321.pdf)\n14. [Japanese Film Archives, Journal of the Japan Foundation (No. 202)](https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/202nd_Japanese_Film_Archives.pdf)\n15. [BFI: A great Japanese film for every year](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/great-japanese-film-every-year-from-1925-now)\n16. [Michael Sragow, Film Comment: Deep Focus, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum](https://www.filmcomment.com/deep-focus-the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum/)\n17. [Shochiku film database: 残菊物語 (1963 remake)](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03551/)\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 › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1940s*\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-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum.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 Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-story-of-the-last-chrysanthemum. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1939 Shochiku film about kabuki actor Kikunosuke and Otoku, the only surviving entry in his performing arts trilogy and his first mature long-take work." }