love letter japanese movie review

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Why ‘Love Letter’ Should Be Considered a Postwar Classic

“All of us Japanese are responsible for the war. All of us struggled in the postwar days. Who can throw a stone at whom?”

Love Letter (1953) is Kinuyo Tanaka’s debut feature film, and bears no similarity to a much more famous film with the same name, Shunji Iwai’s perennially popular Love Letter (1995). Nevertheless, with such a title, and what few images you can find on the internet about the film (combined with the brief synopsis of the film: “A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people” ) you would be hard-pressed not to think this was a romantic melodrama.

Having achieved success as an actress and well-known for her collaborations with Kenji Mizoguchi, Kinuyo Tanaka directed this screen adaptation of Fumio Niwa’s novel with a script by Keisuke Kinoshita. The film looked at the ‘fallen woman’ genre from a seemingly male perspective, with Reikichi, played by Masayuki Mori as protagonist. Initially, for those familiar with Tanaka’s work as an actress, this might have seemed like an odd choice. Now that Tanaka is in the driver’s seat, shouldn’t she want to tell a story from a female perspective? This is part of Love Letter ’s con and the deftness of Tanaka’s direction, starting with the innocuous title. The film deconstructs the romantic melodrama and is a systematic takedown of male hypocrisy, a sympathetic look at the stigma against ‘fallen women’ and what they had to do to survive in postwar Japan, and the hypocrisy of Japanese society towards American influence.

With Reikichi as the story’s protagonist, his hypocrisy and deficit character is more comprehensively laid bare. On the outset, Reikichi is set up as a Brooding Tortured Romantic Hero , while his brother Hiroshi (Juzo Dosan) is portrayed as a Nice Guy . At the start of the film, Reikichi is haunted by the marriage of his childhood sweetheart Michiko (Yoshiko Kuga) to another man and his inability to find her. He is also unable to find work. The subtext is that he has a great deal of ego because of his education, which has partly contributed to his lack of work. When he runs into an old friend Yamaji (Jukichi Uno), he finds work alongside Yamaji writing love letters in English and French for spurned Japanese women to their Western lovers who have abandoned them after the occupation. While Yamaji is sympathetic, friendly and helpful to the women, it is clear that Reikichi looks down on them.

In the context of postwar Japan, women who socialised with American GIs were all conflated with prostitution as Japan’s notorious practice of providing ‘comfort women’ continued after the war to the American GIs. There were the women who were employed ‘officially’ by the brothels set up by the Japanese government and lived near the military base, and then there were also women who socialised with the military men and became their lovers and mistresses to survive; some going on to have babies with them. Tanaka doesn’t mark out the distinctions between the women because in the eyes of the Japanese public, they were all ‘fallen women’.

The Big Reunion: Reikichi (Masayuki Mori, top right) and Michiko’s (Kinuyo Tanaka, top left) reunite at the train station.

It takes the film around 40 minutes—nearly half its runtime—before we finally get to the Big Reunion between Michiko and Reikichi. It feels like a culmination for all of Reikichi’s tortured romantic hero pining. Reikichi searches for an unaware Michiko through a train station, where a crowded train is about to pull away, with her on it. He calls to her, she finally hears, and they lock eyes as she fights her way towards him. The train doors close and pull away, serving as a clever transition to a flashback of their shared history. It is the kind of classic emotional high point you’d expect from a romantic melodrama. For any viewer still expecting a romance though, what unfolds after is decidedly not a romantic reunion. Reikichi proceeds to castigate and pass judgment on Michiko based on what he overheard when she came to request Yamaji’s help to draft a letter for her American lover who abandoned her after she miscarried.

“Why did you let an American soldier have you? Who killed your husband? It could have been the man you slept with.” It is clear his repulsion to her history is twofold, like with all the other women that he writes letters for. He considers these women moral failures, both for betraying Japan by taking up with the enemy, the Americans, and for compromising their virtue. Whether or not Michiko engaged in sex work or was simply a kept woman of an American GI is besides the point — either way, he, like the general public, regarded her as a whore.

Some criticism has been made that Tanaka submits to the Madonna-Whore complex in her portrayal of women with the most discussed scene of the film 1 Gonzalez-Lopez, Irene and Mayu, Ashida. (2018). Tanaka Kinuyo: Film Director in Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity . Edinburgh University Press. Pg. 111 , which occurs in the last act of the film. Hiroshi has met  with Michiko and tries to persuade her into believing that Reikichi has “forgiven her for her past” and they can start their relationship anew. They run into some streetwalkers who recognise Michiko and call out to her. Hiroshi berates them and tells them Michiko is “not like them”. The portrayal of the prostitutes is what always gets criticism, saying that they are shown to be vulgar and crude and portrayed in a negative light, juxtaposed against the meek and therefore virtuous Michiko. This is a strange interpretation, as the context of the entire scene, from Hiroshi and Michiko’s conversation before they meet the other women to the aftermath, all inform the role of these streetwalkers.

Michiko (Yoshiko Kuga) and Hiroshi (Juzo Dosan) run into old acquaintances from Michiko’s past.

Hiroshi’s comment that Michiko is “not like them” further cements his role as a Nice Guy. It has been written that this line reveals Tanaka’s complicitness with the double standards 2 Gonzalez-Lopez, Irene and Mayu, Ashida. (2018). Tanaka Kinuyo: Film Director in Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity . Edinburgh University Press. Pg. 111 placed on women when it comes to sex and virtue. This cannot be further from the truth. The camera lingers on Hiroshi’s downcast eyes when he and Michiko converse after and she laments that “whether or not it is one American man or not” she is already seen as beyond redemption, depraved, in their eyes. Whatever explanation she tries to give, she can see the doubt in Hiroshi’s eyes. He is also guilty of being repulsed with her.

Reikichi being the more ‘educated’, moralistic and judgmental of the brothers was immediately disgusted with her, which quickly revealed his hypocrisy to us as an audience. Although Reikichi’s attitude is terrible, it is eclipsed by Hiroshi’s behaviour. When Michiko’s past catches up to her, and Hiroshi witnesses it, his ‘well-meaning’ attitude—which is presented to audiences for a huge length of the film—quickly changes to one of doubt. This scene reveals his misogyny in two ways—first, the internalised misogyny of placing Michiko on a moral pedestal and then second, the outward misogyny of discriminating against women who do not live up to lofty patriarchal ideals of womanly virtue.

In the end, Michiko feels hopeless and commits a desperate act. Some have read this act as the story ‘punishing’ her for her past, which is another bizarre interpretation. It is clear that everyone in the story is a victim to the double standards of Japanese society’s morality that in fact, still persist to this day in most cultures. Michiko cannot forgive herself for what she had to do to survive after the war, placing dual shame on her ‘sexual impurity’ and ‘betrayal of her nation’ by sleeping with an American GI. The men are also victims of the patriarchal values and xenophobia rooted in the society.

Kyoko Kagawa (left) as a bookstore assistant in Love Letter.

A side plot of the film involves Hiroshi’s flirtations with a girl working at a bookstore specialising in foreign (i.e. Western) publications. As the girl is played by Kyoko Kagawa ( Tokyo Story , The Crucified Lovers ), she stands out. Hiroshi learns from her about the women trying to sell their American magazines obtained from the GIs to the bookstore. Hiroshi sees an opportunity and sets up a magazine stand taking on the business of reselling their magazines. From afar, Reikichi wears a disdainful expression as he observes his brother. However, Reikichi also understands English and French and was basically living off Hiroshi until he found the job writing English letters to the American GIs who have abandoned their women in Japan. Both brothers depend on these women for their work, yet they pass judgment on them and their association with the American soldiers. The popularity of both the bookstore and magazine stand also highlight American culture’s influence in postwar Japan, despite the public’s regard of them as the enemy. The film reveals yet another layer of hypocrisy of postwar Japanese society through this side plot.

Much of postwar Japanese cinema has explored the effects of war in a more nuanced and complex manner than the West, choosing to focus on the trauma and aftermath left on the civilians, especially women. However this is the first Japanese film I have seen that acknowledges Japan’s culpability with a line as explicit as “All of us in Japan are responsible for the war” . The film stresses on Reikichi’s role as an ‘educated’ military man, meaning his actions in war are far more horrific juxtaposed to whatever he thinks are Michiko’s transgressions.

Kinuyo Tanaka (right) makes a cameo in her directorial debut as a customer of Reikichi’s.

Kinuyo Tanaka was one of the most celebrated actresses of her time, working steadily from the 1920s and enjoyed critical success both in Japan and internationally for her role in The Life of Oharu (1952) before becoming the second ever female director in Japanese film history.  However, she had been cruelly derided by the Japanese public back in 1949 after a goodwill trip to America having left Japan in a kimono and arrived back in a Western dress. Her frequent collaborator Kenji Mizoguchi opposed her working as a director, trying to keep her out of the Directors Guild of Japan and she never forgave him for it. 3 Gonzalez-Lopez, Irene and Smith, Michael. (2018). Introduction: The Golden Era in Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity. Edinburgh University Press. Pg. 14 She had played many ‘fallen women’ prior to making Love Letter , and even has a small cameo in the film as another ‘fallen woman’ that Reikichi berates. With her roles in The Life of Oharu and Women of the Night (1948), she explored the absolute bottom of a woman turning to sex work to survive. These basic facts about Tanaka’s career can help inform her work in Love Letter .

It would be interesting to learn more about Fumio Niwa’s novel and how Kinoshita’s script initially read, coming from a male perspective, then translated on screen through Tanaka’s direction. The way Tanaka portrays women and sex workers is never seen through a judgmental black and white lens, and she carefully avoids dwelling on their victimhood. This is in comparison to many of the other great Japanese directors of her time such as Naruse and Mizoguchi, who are no doubt masters of their craft, but whose writing of female characters as constant victims require much needed re-evaluation. Instead, the hypocrisies of patriarchal, postwar Japan are revealed through Reikichi as a source of true psychological violence towards women. In Kinuyo Tanaka’s first directorial work, we see a much-needed female voice that offers a much more nuanced reading of women’s lives in postwar Japan, and especially regarding sex work.

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An in-depth discussion of film

Love Letter (1995) is so overlooked it hurts.

I found Shunji Iwai with Hana & Alice, a wonderful film about teenage friendship, and loved his style. I proceeded to watch All About Lily Chou-Chou and Swallowtail Butterfly and felt thoroughly refreshed by the style Iwai uses to explore his themes, mainly revolving around adolescence.

Yesterday I saw his Love Letter and fell in love with it. It's wildly innovative in its story and is equally reminiscent of the themes and style Iwai is known for. I was however highly disappointed by how unpopular the movie is even in niche film forums like Letterboxd or r/TrueFilm . I couldn't find one critical review and I don't understand why. Usually, a film by a generally critically appreciated director has at the very least one or two critical reviews but, this one has none. None of the users who I follow on Letterboxd have watched it, even though they generally tend to cover almost all categories.

I think it's a shame that Love Letter is being completely overlooked. Even if others might not enjoy it as much as I did, it deserves some discussion about its merits or flaws. I would like to make my case and maybe push at least one user to watch it.

Love Letter reads like any other Asian melodramatic romance plot on paper. I fully expected to watch an albeit sad but somewhat corny drama with tons of crying. I was happy to be completely wrong. Iwai's take on the bound to be cliched plot is one I have never seen before. A dead character is used to build an incredibly compelling narrative effortlessly switching between two narrative streams and also in time, all the while never losing his pace. The structure itself sounds messy but, is incredibly even when you watch the movie, it alone deserves some afterthought even stripped of all of the movie's other pros.

What Iwai does best is capture teenage life. In this movie, he took a retroactive style of reiterating memories of teenage life, and in my opinion, that's the best part of the movie. It feels so endearing and so simple yet poignant. Sprinkled with humor, embarrassment, and the beginnings of a romance the memories sequence is so authentic, it fully feels and flows like actual memories. I was left wanting more just like everyone wanting more of memories they love or people they lost.

Iwai also crafts a screenplay that is deliciously vague about the 'reality' of its characters. Even though the plot could be taken literally, I highly suspect it's meant to mean more. This is evident in the fact that two supposedly non-related characters are played by the same lead actress and memories being recounted always have a sense of uncertainty in them, never fully inviting us into them yet feeling real. I am too dumb to figure it out myself but, I think both the narratives are the same.

Apart from all these, Iwai built enjoyable additions to the plot in terms of good supplementary characters that have a purpose in the story and deeply rich and textured incorporation of weather into the cinematography. There are so many tidbits of brilliance scattered throughout the movie.

Not everyone might enjoy it as much as I did and that's to be expected. I just wish more people watched it and talked about it.

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Love Letter

Directed by Kinuyo Tanaka • 1953 • Japan Starring Masayuki Mori, Juzo Dosan, Yoshiko Kuga

Released a year after the American occupation of Japan ended, Kinuyo Tanaka’s directorial debut explores the professional and personal conflicts of Reikichi (Masayuki Mori), a repatriated veteran who searches for his lost love (Yoshiko Kuga) while translating romantic letters from Japanese women to American GIs. As adapted from a novel by Fumio Niwa, LOVE LETTER depicts with incisive complexity the fraught adaptation of Japanese soldiers to a changed society as well as the moral condemnation of Japanese women who became involved with the enemy.

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Released a year after the American occupation of Japan ended, Kinuyo Tanaka’s directorial debut explores the professional and personal conflicts of Reikichi (Masayuki Mori), a repatriated veteran who search...

Love Letter (1995)

Directed by shunji iwai.

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Love Letter is a 1995 Japanese romantic film written, directed and edited by Shunji Iwai in his debut feature film and starring Miho Nakayama. The majority of the film was shot on the island of Hokkaidō, primarily in Otaru. It achieved great success at the box office in Japan and gained popularity in other East Asian countries, particularly South Korea. Remarkably, it was one of the first Japanese films to be shown in South Korean cinemas since World War II, garnering 645,615 admissions and ranking as the tenth highest-grossing general release of the year.

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Love Letter

• After losing her fiance in a fatal mountain-climbing incident, Hiroko was devastated. She comes across his childhood address in a school yearbook and impulsively writes to him. But what happens when she receives a reply?
• Hiroko Watanabe's fiancé Itsuki died two years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. While looking through his high school yearbook, Hiroko in a fit of grief decides to write a letter to him using his old school address. Surprisingly she receives a reply, not from the dead Itsuki, but from a woman with the same name whom had known Hiroko's fiancé in school. A relationship develops between the two women as they continue to exchange letters and share memories of the dead Itsuki. — Todd K. Bowman <[email protected]>

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Love Letter.(1995)

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Love letter film review: a kinuyo tanaka masterpiece.

• 25 February 2024

• On 24 August 2022

As part of BFI’s Kinuyo Tanaka: A Life in Film

Japanese title: Koibumi Director: Kinuyo Tanaka Based on the novel by Fumio Niwa Released: Japan 1953 Run time: 98 minutes

Love Letter, a debut film by the award-winning actress Kinuyo Tanaka turned director, is a post-war melodrama focusing on the rebuilding of Japan and the lives of its people. It follows the story of Reikichi Mayumi, a man who is given the opportunity to use his bilingual skills in a new role — writing love letters on behalf of Japanese women.

However, it becomes clear that it is his own love letter that occupies his mind and the ongoing search for its sender. Little does he know, his new role will play a huge part in finding the answer but doesn’t help the internal struggle that ensues.

Re-discovering Greatness?

A story of contrasts, women at heart, an unrelenting focus, final thoughts.

Japanese cinema is a lot like exploring a secondhand dealer in the sense that there are a lot of under-recognized products. At the front are a handful of brands and names that almost everyone knows; Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Rashomon ; Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story ; maybe even Takeshi Kitano more recently; beyond that, for many, things begin to get a bit blurry, 

With a bit of digging, you can find some solid buys that are well worth the time and effort. If you spend enough time, however, searching the very bottom of the shelves and every crevice of the store, you’ll find an absolute gem that has no right at all in being in the position you find it. 

Love Letter directed by Kinuyo Tanaka is just like that. 

It’s a film that highlights the situation of Japan, and more importantly, the people of Japan during the years after world war two. It’s a film that has been largely forgotten, by a director that has also been largely forgotten — until recently. Despite it’s release being almost 70 years ago, Love Letter holds firm as a title that showcases a passion for cinema with themes that are scarily just as relevant today as back then.

We enter Japan five years after the conclusion of the second world war in a state of recovery and modernisation. There is a sense of normality and even optimism in the air, especially early on, as we are introduced to the Mayumi brothers; Reikichi and Hiroshi. 

The aforementioned optimistic spirit is the epitome of Hiroshi’s character who is both entrepreneurial and opportunistic, whereas Reikichi, the main protagonist to the story couldn’t be further at the other end of the spectrum. 

This is the first contrast of many which proves to be a vital technique in delivering Kinuyo’s narrative. 

Reikichi, who is an ex-serving naval officer, reconnects with an old friend offering a new role — writing love letters on behalf of Japanese women. However, these women have no intention of love. They are written in English and sent to countless American soldiers in the hope of receiving financial support and stability. 

It’s a reflection of the situation many women were in after the war and the avenues open to them — or thereby lack of — and is very much a focal theme both in Love Letter and Kinuyo’s other films. 

It’s Reikichi’s own perspective of the issue in contrast with the other characters that gives the theme weight. This is further pronounced as the story progresses. We find ourselves beginning to actively notice differences in the protagonist’s thought processes to those around him. At the same time, that ‘optimism’ seen amongst other characters continues its losing battle but helps compound a change in tone that becomes quite stark as opposed to the story’s outset.

This means that Love Letter directed by Kinuyo Tanaka is incredibly character driven and great attention is given in highlighting individual qualities.

It becomes clear that there’s a specific reason behind Reikichi’s dour outlook; he is looking for his own forgotten love interest who makes herself known during the course of the movie. 

This promotes a tonal shift, a nudge towards Kinuyo’s goal of showing the lives of women. But let’s be clear here — this is not a forceful implementation, rather, it’s a modest inclusion that underpins the rest of the film where it simmers until it’s ready to emerge at the opportune moment. 

There are moments however where the audience gets a taste of this bubbling undercurrent, albeit briefly, but with incredible purpose. Where a single line is delivered so startlingly that it pierces the screen straight to the chest. In all honesty it’s a kind of feeling that I’ve not witnessed in a film for a very long time and at that moment, for me, cemented Kinuyo Tanaka as a great director. 

The film goes on to explore women’s reputation through (once again) contrasting characters, and how they are often tarred with the same brush despite their efforts; these situations ultimately arise through Reikichi’s actions and perspective on women. 

This brings us to another incredibly important technique Kinuyo employs to deliver her narrative.

Despite wanting to explore women’s issues, Kinuyo chose a male lead to drive the narrative. But why? 

Consider this: what is the most effective way to get someone to understand a topic? Directly explaining the situation that you take at face value? or, allowing the audience to come to the conclusion themselves through observation?

The latter would obviously be more ideal and is the case with Love Letter. It’s Reikichi’s own words and actions that create a jarring effect and triggers the audience to actively consider the iniquity of the situation. 

In all honesty, it’s masterfully done.

Aside from all the underlying narrative themes and comparative techniques, there are components of quality cinematography. 

Moments of humour told through brief spells of dramatic irony; realistic reactions and facial expressions are playful and often relatable. Then there are the establishing shots that immerse the audience in the gritty backstreets of Japan; good framing and timing that eliminate any cutting back and forth; and an overall focus on showing only what is necessary for the film. 

One point of contention might be how the film feels very westernised. Depending on your situation, it could be a good entry into Japanese cinema, or it could be disappointingly un-Japanese. Either way, this is a reflection of the times. Japan was under American occupation until 28th of April 1952 – only a year and a half before the release of Love Letter — which brought about a lot of western customs and changes to Japanese society. 

While Kinuyo’s Love Letter is entirely focused on delivering its proposed narrative, I felt it may be too much so. 

This may seem like a bit of a contradiction, but hear me out. 

At the same time of the aforementioned tonal shift, after Reikichi rediscovers his love interest, the narrative becomes totally singular. While the first half of the film certainly had a focus, other characters and mini-sub plots were also present, giving a bit of padding to the world. The second half lost most of that additional substance (which is a real shame) and felt Kinuyo suffered from a bout of tunnel vision.

This isn’t enough to derail the entire film however, but merely a slight disappointment in an otherwise compelling story.

Love Letter has an air of hopeless romanticism to it. It’s a feeling that doesn’t pertain to just the characters, but as an overall quality to the film. Certainly there are times when it feels more hopeless than others but it is constantly there. 

I say this because, despite following a downcast protagonist, you’re never reduced to the same lows that he exudes; instead, you’re left with a feeling of optimism. Optimism brought on by those around him — the same optimism Hiroshi displays early on but which we all quickly forget. 

And that’s how I would describe Love Letter by Kinuyo Tanaka. A story that forces you to see beyond one man’s perspective — beyond the given narrative. A story that contributes just as much behind the scenes as it does at the forefront.

Find out more of BFI’s Kinuyo Tanaka: A Life in Film here .

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