Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs) (1963)
Movie Info
Cast
as Keiko Yashiro
as Nobuhiko Fujisaki
as Junko Inchihashi
as Kenichi Komatsu the bartender
as Matsukichi Sekine
as Yuri
as Goda
as Minobe
Critic Reviews for Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
All Critics (14) | Top Critics (1) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (0) | DVD (2)
A new classic.
It's also elegantly shot and scored; all that's missing is a touch of humour.
A heartbreaker.
Sprint, don't walk, up those BFI steps to see it.
The new retrospective of Mikio Naruse at London's BFI Southbank will do much to restore the reputation of a neglected Japanese director, and this 1960 film is a heartbreaking study, to be compared with Mizoguchi's Life of Oharu.
Shot in luminous black and white cinemascope, this is an exquisitely understated study of the plight of a young woman in an unforgiving society.
Audience Reviews for Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
If you have seen it tell me you didn't have tears coming down throw this heartbraking film??? This classic is surely one of my top 30 and it's nothing short of neat and near perfect! I liked the way Hideko Takamine acts out her lines with such power and emotion. The style of our director is their with the way she films it, and she tends to make more use of shadows for more reason one can see while watching. I liked every aspect of production and my final suggestion is SEE IT! (I may make a bigger review some day)
Super Reviewer
this is my first experience of naruse and in fact his only film that's widely available in the u.s. this is a shame as i found it to be a masterpiece on the level of ozu or mizoguchi. it's interesting so many of their films revolve around female characters. meanwhile you'd be hard-pressed to find a single decent female character in most of kurosawa's work
Super Reviewer
a patient, emotional, and highly effective portrayal of the struggle of a virtuous woman in a not so virtuous world. the film features some of the great and familiar actors from this era of japanese cinema and just about every aspect of the film was performed well. the only real drawback was that the storyline with the main characters brother, a storyline i found myself very interested in, was the only storyline in the film not developed well. the main plot however was developed perfectly and the film gets its point across with beauty. overall an excellent film for any fan of good female leads or japanese cinema.
Super Reviewer
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