# Victory of Women (女性の勝利)
**Victory of Women** (女性の勝利, *Josei no shōri*) is a 1946 Japanese drama film directed by [Kenji Mizoguchi](https://www.edgepedia.org/kenji-mizoguchi) and released by Shochiku on April 18, 1946, about a female lawyer who defends a woman accused of killing her baby in the poverty of postwar Japan[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/). It was Mizoguchi's first film after the war and the first entry in his so-called women's liberation trilogy, followed by *[The Love of the Actress Sumako](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-love-of-sumako-the-actress)* (1947) and *[Flame of My Love](https://www.edgepedia.org/flame-of-my-love)* (1949)[2](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/kyobashi-za2026-9/) • [3](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110636581/pdf).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Japanese release | April 18, 1946 (Thursday), distributed by Shochiku[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/) |
| Director and studio | Kenji Mizoguchi; produced at Shochiku's Ofuna studio[4](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848) |
| Screenplay | Kogo Noda and Kaneto Shindo[4](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848) |
| Running time | 84 minutes per Shochiku; surviving 35mm prints held by the National Film Archive of Japan run 81 minutes[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/) • [4](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848) |
| Lead cast | Kinuyo Tanaka as the lawyer Hiroko Hosokawa, with Michiko Kuwano, Mitsuko Miura, Shin Tokudaiji, and Kohei Matsumoto as Prosecutor Kono[4](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848) • [5](https://movingimage.org/archived-events/victory-of-women-josei-no-shori/) |
| Place in Mizoguchi's career | First film of his postwar women's liberation trilogy (1946, 1947, 1949)[3](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110636581/pdf) |
| Format | 35mm black-and-white sound film[4](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The liberal critic Keita Yamaoka (Shin Tokudaiji) is released from prison with the end of the war after five years of confinement that have left him physically and mentally broken. Welcoming him is his former lover, the lawyer Hiroko Hosokawa (Kinuyo Tanaka). The revival of their romance is feared most by Hiroko's sister Michiko (Michiko Kuwano) and by Michiko's husband, the prosecutor Kono (Kohei [Matsumoto](https://www.edgepedia.org/matsumoto)), a man of firm feudal convictions[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/).
As the movement to democratize the judiciary grows, the bar association targets Prosecutor Kono as the first figure to purge. Hiroko, meanwhile, takes on the defense of her former schoolmate Moto Asakura (Mitsuko Miura), a woman left in the depths of poverty after her husband's death who, in mental derangement from grief, caused the death of her child[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/). In the Museum of the Moving Image's plot summary, the accused is a woman widowed only shortly before, who took her infant's life because she could not bring up a child in the widespread destitution and profiteering that marked the years after the war[5](https://movingimage.org/archived-events/victory-of-women-josei-no-shori/).
In court, Hiroko faces Kono by chance. He argues that the defendant shirked her responsibility as a mother and committed an immoral act, and seeks five years' imprisonment. Hiroko points to the defects of Japan's feudal family life, arguing that Japanese women, raised in a spirit of dependence on men, fall into hardship the moment they lose the prop of a husband, and pleads that the crime is the sin of Japanese society itself. She calls for an acquittal and for women's awakening from dependence on men[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/).
## Historical context
After Japan's surrender in 1945, the American Occupation government encouraged filmmakers to produce what were called "idea pictures," works that promoted democracy and its favored topics[5](https://movingimage.org/archived-events/victory-of-women-josei-no-shori/). When the Shochiku studio was asked to produce films on women's liberation, it turned to Mizoguchi, who by the 1930s was already an established director praised for his portrayals of women enduring hardship[3](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110636581/pdf). Working under the Occupation's new censorship, Mizoguchi chose as his subject the liberation of women bound by feudal ideas[2](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/kyobashi-za2026-9/).
The film arrived alongside real legal change. The early postwar era brought a raft of reforms that worked to enhance the position of Japanese women, including universal suffrage and provisions aimed at equity in divorce, inheritance, property ownership, and access to education[6](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv7n09rh).
## Production and style
The screenplay was co-written by Kogo Noda, known for his long collaboration with director Yasujiro Ozu, and Kaneto Shindo[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/). Shochiku's database describes the film as a work with a stiff, strongly message-laden content, but one that displays Mizoguchi's characteristic gripping dramatic direction and long-take cinematography throughout[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/). A Japanese viewer's account of a later screening notes the film's many long takes and fixed, theatrical framing, with the courtroom sequence in which the lawyer speaks for women's rights edited instead into shots of varying distances, giving it a forceful effect[7](https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054888469610/episodes/1177354054945600642).
The production credits Sennosuke Tsukimori as producer, Toshio Ubukata as cinematographer, Isamu Motoki as art director, and Kiyoshi Asai as composer[4](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848).
## Place in Mizoguchi's work
The film is the first of three Mizoguchi pictures of the Occupation era centered on exceptional female public figures, all starring Tanaka: *Victory of Women* (1946), *The Love of the Actress Sumako* (1947), and *Flame of My Love* (1949)[3](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110636581/pdf). In these films Tanaka appeared as a rebellious, ideologically infused lead character, a new register for her star image during a period of legal reform for Japanese women[6](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv7n09rh). One Japanese film-history account characterizes the film bluntly as a propaganda work about women's independence starring Tanaka[8](https://www.shogakukan.co.jp/jinbocho-theater/features/2026-08-15_mizoguchi-kenji-70th.html), and scholarship has often treated the trilogy as a transitional phase before the late works for which Mizoguchi is best known[9](https://researchmap.jp/wyler/published_papers/43823380/attachment_file.pdf).
The film's affirmative title is earned, in the Museum of the Moving Image's description, with a call-to-arms climax, even as the film stays fully engaged with the ambient despair of its time[5](https://movingimage.org/archived-events/victory-of-women-josei-no-shori/). A 2026 retrospective at the National Film Archive of Japan, marking the 70th anniversary of Mizoguchi's death in 1956, included the film in its program[2](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/kyobashi-za2026-9/).
## References
1. [女性の勝利 作品データベース, 松竹株式会社 (Shochiku)](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02411/)
2. [女性の勝利, 京橋映画小劇場 2026-2027, 国立映画アーカイブ (National Film Archive of Japan)](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/kyobashi-za2026-9/)
3. [Hürter, Johannes, and Tobias Hof (eds.), chapter on Mizoguchi's Occupation-era films, De Gruyter](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110636581/pdf)
4. [女性の勝利, 所蔵映画フィルム検索システム, 国立映画アーカイブ (NFAJ film database)](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=848)
5. [Victory of Women (Josei no Shori), Museum of the Moving Image](https://movingimage.org/archived-events/victory-of-women-josei-no-shori/)
6. [Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv7n09rh)
7. [酒井小言, 広島市映像文化ライブラリーで「女性の勝利」を観る, Kakuyomu](https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054888469610/episodes/1177354054945600642)
8. [没後70年 映画監督・溝口健二の略歴, 神保町シアター (Shogakukan)](https://www.shogakukan.co.jp/jinbocho-theater/features/2026-08-15_mizoguchi-kenji-70th.html)
9. [日本映画学会大会報告集 (2021), researchmap](https://researchmap.jp/wyler/published_papers/43823380/attachment_file.pdf)
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*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*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license