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The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (残菊物語)

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (残菊物語, Zangiku Monogatari) is a 1939 Japanese black-and-white drama directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, adapted by Yoshikata Yoda from Shofu Muramatsu's 1937 novel about the kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke II. A Shochiku production made at the company's Kyoto studio, the film traces the doomed four-year love affair between Kikunosuke (Shotaro Hanayagi), a kabuki actor whose celebrity rests entirely on his distinguished family name, and Otoku (Kakuko Mori), who nurses his baby brother and sincerely presses him to better his craft.1 • 2 The film is the first of Mizoguchi's "performing arts trilogy" and the only surviving entry in it1.

Key factDetail
Director / studioKenji Mizoguchi; Shochiku Kyoto (Shimokamo studio), 19392
SourceShofu Muramatsu's 1937 novel, based on the true story of kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke II3
Running time143 minutes per the National Film Archive of Japan's film record; the 2015 digital restoration is listed at 142 minutes and the JFDB at 147 minutes4 • 1 • 5
LeadsShotaro Hanayagi as Kikunosuke; Kakuko Mori as Otoku6
AwardFirst Ministry of Education Prize at the Excellent Film Selection (1939)7
StyleMizoguchi's signature long takes reached full maturity here; Shochiku credits the film with completing his one-scene, one-shot method1 • 2
RestorationDigital restoration premiered in the Cannes Classics section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival8

Spoilers

Story

The film is set in Meiji-era Japan. Kikunosuke, the adopted son of the famous kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro V, is praised everywhere he goes, but the praise attaches to his family name rather than his acting, and he never rehearses seriously enough to escape being a poor performer. Otoku, the young wet nurse of his infant brother, tells him honestly that his art is immature. Stung, he recognizes that his reputation rests entirely on his adoptive father's prestige, and he falls in love with her2 • 9.

Their relationship crosses class lines, and the household turns against it. Otoku is persecuted by the women of the house and finally driven out. Kikunosuke defies his adoptive father and leaves home to join her, and the two live in poverty while he tours as a traveling actor, with Otoku supporting him through years of hardship2. In the historical account the film draws on, Kikunosuke II was disinherited by Kikugoro V in 1886 (Meiji 19), went down to Osaka, and was readmitted to the family four years later10.

The ending follows the melodrama's logic of sacrifice. Through Otoku's resourcefulness, Kikunosuke's improvement is recognized by his adoptive father, and he rises in the theatrical world; in exchange, he is asked to part from Otoku. In the film's final movement he takes part in an actors' boat parade on the river, learns that Otoku has been struck down by illness, and speeds to her side2 • 6.

Production

Mizoguchi arrived at Shochiku's Shimokamo studio in Kyoto in 1939 after working at Nikkatsu, Daiichi Eiga, and Shinko Kinema. Shochiku's own history describes him as a director who, throughout his career, depicted oppressed women with cold realism, and notes that he cast the stars of the revived shinpa theater, Shotaro Hanayagi and Kakuko Mori, in the leading roles7.

The credited crew reflects the studio's first-rank staffing: Yoshikata Yoda wrote the screenplay adaptation, Matsutaro Kawaguchi handled composition, Shigeto Miki and Yozo Fuji photographed, Hiroshi Mizutani designed the art, and Shiro Fukai composed the music4. Mizutani's richly designed sets drew particular praise in later assessments; he continued as art director on many Mizoguchi films into the postwar era5.

Style and the performing arts trilogy

The film is identified by Shochiku and the National Film Archive of Japan as the point at which Mizoguchi's long-take style reached full maturity, with strikingly choreographed kabuki scenes of unusual depth and dynamism building to a visually grand finale1. Shochiku's database states that Mizoguchi completed his one-scene, one-shot method with this work2. The JFDB notes that the frequent long takes create palpable tension, singling out a scene in which Otoku slices and shares out a watermelon5.

Mizoguchi followed the film with Naniwa Onna (1940), which first brought the actress Kinuyo Tanaka into his work, and Geido Ichidai Otoko (1941), adapted from a Matsutaro Kawaguchi original. These three works are called the "performing arts trilogy" (芸道三部作), and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums is the only one that survives7 • 1.

Reception and context

The film won the first Ministry of Education Prize at the Excellent Film Selection in 19397, and Kinema Junpo ranked it second among Japanese films of that year10. A scholarly study by Kimie Akai of Gakushuin University's graduate school places the film at the center of the geidomono ("way-of-art" stories) boom of the mid-1930s, in which devotion and self-sacrifice to art were framed as noble acts, a value system she reads as carrying a degree of complicity with emperor-centric nationalism3.

The story has been filmed repeatedly. After Mizoguchi's 1939 version, Koji Shima directed a 1956 remake at Daiei, and Hideyuki Oba directed a third version released on October 17, 1963, running 105 minutes, with the third-generation Ebizo Ichikawa as Kikunosuke and Mariko Okada as Otoku11.

The 1939 film remained available in a restored form: a digital restoration of picture and sound premiered in the Cannes Classics section at Cannes in 20158 • 6, and the Criterion Collection issued it on Blu-ray and DVD as spine number 832, with a restored 4K digital transfer and an essay by the film scholar Dudley Andrew12.

Release dates and running time

Japanese databases disagree on small details of the release. Eiga.com gives October 9, 1939; Kinenote, allcinema, and the JFDB give October 10; and Shochiku's own database gives October 1313 • 8 • 2. Running times likewise vary by source: 143 minutes in the National Film Archive's film record and most databases, 142 minutes for the digital restoration print, and 147 minutes in the JFDB4 • 1 • 5. A reviewer's note that 143 of an original 146 minutes survive is consistent with the film being nearly complete14.

References

  1. [殘菊物語［デジタル修復版］The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums [Digital Restoration], National Film Archive of Japan, TIFF/NFAJ Classics program](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/tiff-nfaj202610-4/)
  2. 残菊物語 (1939), Shochiku film database
  3. Akai, Kimie (2013). "The Age of Geidōmono: Focusing on The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum," Journal of the Japanese Society for Theatre Research 56
  4. 殘菊物語, NFAJ film collection search system
  5. Zangiku monogatari (The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum), Japanese Film Database (JFDB)
  6. Zangiku Monogatari (The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum), Festival de Cannes, Cannes Classics 2015
  7. 松竹の映画製作の歴史 Part6 〈『愛染かつら』と『残菊物語』〉, Shochiku
  8. 残菊物語 (1939), Kinenote
  9. 残菊物語, Shochiku Cinema Plus
  10. 日本映画レビュー─1939年: 残菊物語
  11. 残菊物語 (1963), Shochiku film database
  12. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939), The Criterion Collection
  13. 残菊物語 (1939), Eiga.com
  14. 残菊物語 review by Benito, Filmarks

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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