Natto Wada
Writing
Biography
Natto Wada (和田 夏十, Wada Natto, 13 September 1920 – 18 February 1983), also known as Natsuto Wada, was a Japanese script writer and film columnist. Wada graduated with an English degree from Tokyo Women's College in 1946. She started her career at the Fujimoto Cinema Production company, where she met her husband, Kon Ichikawa, a filmmaker who promoted her script work to colleagues and collaborated with her on several films. She began writing, or co-writing, scripts in 1951, and continued until 1965. Wada's scripts included the 1953 film Puu-san, a satirical comedy based on the manga of Yokoyama Taizo; the 1956 film Shokei no Heya, based on a novel by Ishihara Shintaro. That year, Wada also wrote Nihonbashi, based on a novel by Izumi Kyoka, which documented the rivalry of two geisha in a male-dominated culture. Kuroi Junin no Onna (Ten Dark Women) was a 1961 film that satirized an egotistical male's reliance on his wife to stay out of trouble. Also that year, Wada wrote Hakai (The Broken Commandment) a film adaptation of Shimazaki Toson's eponymous 1906 novel, which examined the life of a social outcast. Wada's adaptation was notable for strengthening the role of the female protagonist. Other film scripts by Wada or with collaborators include Biruma no Tategoto (Harp of Burma, 1956), based on the eponymous 1946 novel by Takayama Michio; Enjō (Conflagration, 1959) based on Mishima Yukio's 1956 novel, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Wada was also known for her work as an advice columnist during the 1960s. Her column, "Personal Life Consultation," ran in the Asahi Shimbun.
Known For
In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.
Fires on the Plain
“Ten Dark Women” was written by Natto Wada and directed by Kon Ichikawa in 1961. It’s a dark humor story about a married television producer who has a wife and nine mistresses. Ten of them band together and plan to kill him.
Ten Dark Women
In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.
The Burmese Harp
Kaze is a philandering TV producer. His wife and nine of his mistresses conspire to kill him. However each woman would rather keep him alive, as long as she was the only woman in his life.
Ten Dark Women
Ichikawa's 1956 adaptation of Nihonbashi was the first to take the work of Kyoka Izumi— until then regarded as a writer of common tragic melodramas—and re-evaluate it as a tanbi-ha work of decadence, aestheticism, and intrigue. Ichikawa's film presents the tragic plot of the young geisha who is unable to enact her love for a man publicly in any way other than a histrionic story of torment, a heart-rending tale of lovers being crushed by fate. Instead, Ichikawa shows the contest of wills that transpires as two geisha, Oko and Kiyoha fight for the top spot in Nihonbashi, the pinnacle of the Tokyo geisha world. Nihonbashi is an elegant, if steely, exposition of manners. The young doctor, Shinzo Katsuragi, is the object of affection for both women, but appears to be more the choice reward for the plotting and thieving of these two early modern superwomen, than a lover they swoon over.
Bridge of Japan
A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife.
Odd Obsession
No description available.
Forbidden Path
Tamio Moroi, a young university graduate, works at a large brewery where he is taught to do nothing but look busy. When his father goes insane, he is told to send money for medical research into the condition. This prompts him to pay his father a visit, leading to a series of mishaps that leaves him at the bottom of the heap in what he once expected to be a promising lifetime career.
The Crowded Train
A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.
Mr. Pu
Pu Zhe, younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko, daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war.
The Wandering Princess
A female reporter is fired for writing about police corruption; to make money while hiding from the press, she posts a bounty upon herself.
Hole in One
In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago.
An Actor's Revenge
An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes.
A Billionaire
This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive events. Highlights include an epic pole-vaulting match between West Germany and America, and the final marathon race through Tokyo's streets. Two athletes are highlighted: Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who receives his second gold medal, and runner Ahamed Isa from Chad, representing a country younger than he is.
Tokyo Olympiad
In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
The Burmese Harp
Kazuko and Umeko have been friends since college. They are modern businesswomen who have many obligations in life and are not ready for marriage. Their families think differently and strive to arrange their personal happiness.
Goodbye, Hello
Learning of his family's collapse, acolyte Goichi, sent to study silently at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, must endure acute psychological distress.
Conflagration
Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning, many unforeseen events will test his determination.
Alone Across the Pacific
Based on the folk tales "Repayment from a crane". One snowy night a beautiful woman named Tsuru (Crane) visits poor peasant Taiju and says she will become his wife...
Crane
Kikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for producing a son. Driven to a life of dissipation - his mistresses also fail to produce daughters - in the end he is just too tired to care.