Just after Gion no kyodai (also known as the mistakenly pronounced Gion no shimai), the production company Daiichi Eiga broke up. Mizoguchi then joined another small company Shinko Kinema where he would make three feature films. Aienkyo is the only surviving film Mizoguchi made for this company. Originally director of Shinpa films (Japanese melodrama film), Mizoguchi daringly reteated the traditional theme of Resurrection in Japanese silent film. Tolstoi’s Resurrection had already been adapted for Japanese cinema several times in the teen’s vulgarization of the novel was attained through numerous stage performances and films. The religious and ideological theme of Tolstoi’s novel diminished in the Japanese adaptations. The most important element was the destiny of the heroine as the impetus of the melodrama. However, Mizoguchi did not employ the archaic representation of a downtrodden heroine and her resurrection. Aienkyo was in fact not an adaptation of the Tolstoi novel. The story is completely different. Only some elements of the story were borrowed from the novel. The attitude of the heroine in this film is basically the same as the heroines in Naniwa ereji and Gion no kyodai, two of his previous films. The women in these films do not depend on men. The heroines live quite vigorously their not so happy lives.

Komatsu Hiroshi