Night Drum

Original title: Yoru no tsuzumi

1958
1h 35m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

When a married woman has an affair with a young musician, feudal Japanese law requires that both offenders pay with their lives. However, the woman's husband blames himself for his wife's st... Read allWhen a married woman has an affair with a young musician, feudal Japanese law requires that both offenders pay with their lives. However, the woman's husband blames himself for his wife's straying and attempts to thwart the law demanding capital punishment.When a married woman has an affair with a young musician, feudal Japanese law requires that both offenders pay with their lives. However, the woman's husband blames himself for his wife's straying and attempts to thwart the law demanding capital punishment.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

170

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins

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Trivia
Both of the distinguished screenwriters who adapted this film from the famous Monzaemon Chikamatsu puppet play, "The Drum of the Waves of Horikawa," Kaneto Shindô and Shinobu Hashimoto, would subsequently die at the age of 100 years, Shindo in May 2012 and Hashimoto in July 2018. According to IMDB, this is the only screenplay on which they collaborated.

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Featured review

9/10

Remarkable Japanese romantic tragedy

A Japanese classic from way back, of special interest to lovers of black and white cinematography. With elegant and dreamlike images, this unpretentious film evokes Japan's forgotten feudal world from the perspective of one wealthy household. As a simple story of an illicit affair (devoid of FX, commercial tie-ins, or anime) cynics may find it a bit melodramatic. But when I saw it as a teenager (in the 70s) it was heady stuff.

Like many older Japanese films, it examines the tug-of-war between rigid social rules and personal desire. Having broken an unyielding taboo, the central characters all pay a terrible price as the romance unfolds. Masayuki Mori is incandescent here, as intelligent and seductive as any male film star you're likely to see.