I first heard about SOULS ON THE ROAD from Donald Richie's seminal book 100 YEARS OF JAPANESE FILM. It's one of a precious few pre-WWII Japanese films to still exist. It's not exactly a great movie in and of itself-- outside of those interested in film history, I cannot see any other enthusiastic audience for it. In its day, it was groundbreaking for presenting actual actresses in female roles, rather than the more traditional use of men in drag, and it was considered a benchmark for cinematic realism.
Today, the film plays as a riff on DW Griffith's pastoral films like THE GREATEST QUESTION. There's extensive use of parallel editing in the Griffith mode. One of the heroines looks like a cross between Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, and that's hardly the only western influence. The opening and closing titles quote Maxim Gorky, the Russian writer, and the characters celebrate Christmas.
The story is sentimental and sometimes hard to follow (this latter problem might stem from the translation of the intertitles I had to work with). I wasn't always sure what the characters' motivations were either. I would be lying if I said the film wasn't something of a drag. However, as a historical curiosity, it's worth 80 minutes.
