Dobu (film)

Dobu
Directed by	Kaneto Shindo
Produced by	Kōzaburō Yoshimura[1]
Screenplay by	Kaneto Shindo
Starring	Nobuko Otowa, Jūkichi Uno, Taiji Tonoyama
Music by	Akira Ifukube
Production company	Kindai Eiga Kyokai
Release dates	July 27, 1954 (Japan) [1]
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Dobu (どぶ) is a 1954 Japanese film written and directed by Kaneto Shindo and starring Nobuko Otowa.^[1]

Plot

Toku, a factory worker (Taiji Tonoyama) gives food to a starving woman, Tsuru (Nobuko Otowa), who then follows him home. He shares a shack in a shanty village in Kawasaki with his friend Pin-chan (Jūkichi Uno). The two men try to get rid of her but then let her stay when she gives them money. Tsuru tells the people of the village that she lost her job due to a strike, then was robbed of her severance pay, then sold to a brothel in Tsuchiura. She ran away with a friend from Kawasaki. Toku and Pin-chan sell her to a geisha house and spend the money. She is thrown out. The owner demands his money back. Tsuru earns the money to pay their debt by working as a prostitute outside the station. The other prostitutes beat her. She fends them off with a policeman's revolver and is then shot dead by the police.

Cast

• Nobuko Otowa as Tsuru
• Jūkichi Uno
• Taiji Tonoyama

Reception

Japanese film scholar Alexander Jacoby describes Dobu as "a searing account of urban poverty".^[2]

References

1. "どぶ - KINENOTE". Retrieved 17 September 2012.
2. Jacoby, Alexander (31 May 2012). "Classical virtues: Shindo Kaneto and Yoshimura Kozaburo". British Film Institute. Retrieved 17 September 2012.

External links

• Dobu at the Internet Movie Database
• Dobu at the Japanese Movie Database (Japanese)