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IMDb > Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (1960)

Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (1960) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
8.3/10   807 votes
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Director:
Mikio Naruse
Writer:
Ryuzo Kikushima (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
25 June 1963 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama more
Plot:
This is the story of Mama, a.k.a. Keiko, a middle-aged geisha who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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User Comments:
An exquisite character study more

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Hideko Takamine ... Keiko Yashiro
Masayuki Mori ... Nobuhiko Fujisaki
Reiko Dan ... Junko Inchihashi
Tatsuya Nakadai ... Kenichi Komatsu, the manager
Daisuke Katô ... Matsukichi Sekine
Ganjiro Nakamura ... Goda
Eitarô Ozawa ... Minobe
Keiko Awaji ... Yuri
Jun Tatara
Yu Fujiki
Masao Oda
Ken Mitsuda
Chikako Hosokawa
Sadako Sawamura
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (USA) (literal English title)
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Runtime:
111 min
Country:
Japan
Language:
Japanese
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding) (Western Electric Recording)
Certification:
UK:PG | Portugal:M/12
Filming Locations:
Tokyo, Japan
Company:
Toho Company more

FAQ

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16 out of 17 people found the following comment useful:-
An exquisite character study, 6 March 2006
10/10
Author: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.

Widowed Tokyo bar hostess Keiko is in her thirties and thinking about her limited choices. She could open her own bar but this would require financial help from clients and perhaps favors she is unwilling to give, or she could get married, but that would mean breaking a vow to her late husband that she would never love another man. Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is an exquisite character study about a woman caught in a trap of financial obligations who is forced to perform a job she dislikes in order to stay afloat. It is both a depiction of one woman's courage and perseverance and a commentary on the limited opportunities for women in Japan with little education or family connections. Hideko Takamine is unforgettable as Keiko, the beleaguered hostess who is affectionately called "mama" by the younger barmaids.

Keiko is a graceful and charming woman who wears a traditional kimono but is under pressure by her devoted manager Kenichi Komatsu (Tatsuya Nakadai) to modernize her wardrobe and upgrade her living arrangements to keep up with growing Western influences. Of the many men in her life, three monopolize her attention: Mr. Fujisaki (Masayuki Mori), Mr. Sekine (Daisuke Kato), and Mr. Minobe (Ganjiro Nakamura). Each relationship starts out with promise but each leads to severe disappointment. She receives a marriage proposal from Mr. Sekine that turns out to be bogus. She tells Mr. Fujisaki that she loves him but promised her husband she would not remarry. Nonetheless, she is crushed when she learns that he has been transferred to Osaka.

The film complements the dramatic action with Keiko's inner dialogue. Backed by a cool jazz score that evokes the mood of Tokyo streets in the early evening, she contemplates how most women in Tokyo are going to their home when her work is first starting. In another sequence she muses, "Around midnight Tokyo's 16,000 bar women go home. The best go home by car. Second-rate ones by streetcar. The worst go home with their customers." As Keiko struggles financially to help her aging mother, her brother who must pay a lawyer to stay out of prison, and her nephew who needs an operation, she knows that she would be better off if she would relax her standards, but she will not compromise her integrity. The stairs she must climb each night to her bar become a symbol both of her triumphant determination and her personal tragedy.

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