A Story from Chikamatsu (1954) poster
1954 · drama · romance

A Story from Chikamatsu

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi1h 42m1954
ElsewhereIMDb8.05kRT100%TMDB7.8153
  • heavy
  • measured
  • bleak
  • signature
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, measured drama / romance, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

When the wife of a 17th-century Kyoto scrollmaker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves truly falling for one another.

Our read · A Story from Chikamatsu (1954) reads as a heavy, measured, grounded drama · romance entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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Availability in the UK · via JustWatch

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The shape of A Story from Chikamatsu

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want Mizoguchi's elegant, tragic tale of forbidden love and rigid social punishment in old Kyoto.

ends devastatingit stays with youmeditativegrips by minute 20attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if you want fast plot or modern pacing from a 1950s Japanese period drama.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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