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Cinema Ozu (18a): Dragnet Girl Goes Bang-Bang

Feature #27
Dragnet Girl / Hijosen no onna
(1933)
Status: fully preserved and available on DVD overseas
Script: fully preserved
Prints: original negative and multiple prints survive
Region1 DVD: none as of this writing

Dragnet Girl is Ozu's most "American" picture, with settings and characters that would fit New York, NY better than you'd think they suit Japan. Cigar-chomping toughs, a former boxer as protagonist, and a gun moll leading lady who no one can trust. The noir-evoking, expressionist cinematography is gauzy, inky, and just plain gorgeous. Touching that French word is dangerous, but it's merited. Even though Dragnet Girl comes from across an ocean and years before the commonly-accepted American noir period of the late 40's and 50's, the similar stylistic flourishes are undeniable. Of his silent films that I hadn't seen before, Dragnet Girl is far and away my favorite.

Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) is a good girl who works as a typist by day. By night, she lives, lurks, and parties with gangster Jyoji, (Joji Oka) a washed-up boxer. A fresh-faced college student named Hiroshi (Hideo Mitsui aka Koji Mitsui) joins the gang, and Jyoji becomes attracted to Hiroshi's sister Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo in her only role for Ozu). Tokiko gets jealous and starts a war of terror against Kazuko. Tokiko unintentionally has her heart softened by Kazuko and is tempted to go straight, but complications arise.

Jyoji (l.) and pal

Going through his filmography from beginning to end, I'm watching some of Ozu's films for a second, third or fourth time. Up until now, I haven't re-watched one that's entirely new to me. This morning, I watched Dragnet Girl for the third time in two weeks.

I find Dragnet Girl irresistible because, in some ways, it is so radically different than what came before or after from Ozu. He had done a couple of "crime" films previously (Walk Cheerfully and That Night's Wife), but this one is something else. He draws in elements of American films as well as his earlier "gangster" movies and manages to produce something all its own in layers of glass and glowing light. Due to similar plot mechanics and characters, one could easily consider DG a reworking of Walk Cheerfully. The movie is so rich with visual texture, it's as if Ozu wanted to say goodbye to a favorite genre by reinventing it for himself.

There are lots of fast cuts and setups, but there are still elements that are reflected in Ozu's later work. In particular, we see many "deep" compositions, with long rooms and spaces separated by glass (both opaque and transparent). The striking visuals absolutely command one's attention from the opening sequence. It's a real shame that Dragnet Girl is import-only in the US at the moment.

Oka positively burns up the screen in every scene as the ex-boxer with a hidden soft spot. It's too bad that he's never seen in another Ozu film (though he'd act for another three decades). He was previously the lead in the now-lost Until the Day We Meet Again, and its loss is all the more felt after seeing him in this.

This was undoubtedly star Kinuyo Tanaka's break into the big-time after supporting roles in Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? and Woman of Tokyo. From here, she embarks on an extremely long and successful career. Later today, I'll have a new Appendix article about where she goes from here. Boyish Hideo Mitsui, later credited as "Koji" Mitsui, would similarly go on to a lengthy, fruitful career that we'll look at after this week's piece on A Story of Floating Weeds.

None of the other actors appeared in any Ozu pictures aside from Reiko Tani, who plays an office manager here and was previously the Company President in Tokyo Chorus. He next pops up in Passing Fancy as a barber. Star-to-be Chishu Ryu once again pops in for a cameo. This time, he's a policeman.

One of many shots through window glass, and also one of many in an RCA Victor shop. I'll publish a post with a few more screenshots on its own later in the week.

Hope for a Region1 DVD: It's plain to see for me now that Criterion could pack together a nice little "Ozu's Crime Films" Eclipse set out of this, That Night's Wife, and Walk Cheerfully, but frankly, I'd much prefer to see Dragnet Girl released on its own or in a pairing with Woman of Tokyo (the other surviving "Fallen Women" movie), along with some supplements about how it was influenced by various American films. I would resist importing as with other silent Ozu work, since the Hong Kong disc has no score at all (something I really like about the US discs from Eclipse).

Dragnet Girl in particular is so different from what are considered "signature" Ozu films that I feel that it deserves a little elevation. It's not counted among Ozu's "great films", but I think it's worth some recognition on its own merits in addition to the novelty value relative to what is traditionally considered a distinctly Ozu film. I'd love to see the first newly-produced "talking heads" piece on Ozu with Donald Richie, David Bordwell, and Tadao Sato all chiming in. A boy can dream, right?

The more I think about it, the more I'd want to see them put TNW and WC together with other films from 1927-1932 in an Early Ozu package. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm going to talk about my hopes for R1 releases on a bunch of titles after I cover 1952's The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (the last non-R1 title), and that's not happening until right around the end of this month.

As I mentioned further up, I'll be revisiting this film later in the week with some more screenshots. Up next is a brief look at the overall career of Kinuyo Tanaka, who shed her bland, "good girl" image with this film. After that, the next film is Passing Fancy, the first installment of Ozu's second trilogy, which follows the Little Tramp-like Kihachi.

Browse Cinema Ozu
(17): Tokyo Woman of the Night << | >> (Appendix C) Kinuyo Tanaka, Actress

Cinema Ozu is a limited-run series of articles about the career and impact of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. My primary intent is to chronicle my own journey through his films, a fair number of which I have seen, but even more of which I have not. The most essential research tools I have used are David Bordwell's book Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema and definitive Ozu fansite "Ozu-san".

The series is also timed to celebrate the July 2010 U.S. release of The Only Son and There Was a Father as a DVD double-set by The Criterion Collection. You can find all entries in Cinema Ozu here. New to the series? It's best to start from the beginning.