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Actors: Youki Kudoh, Michael Ashby, Tamlyn Tomita, Toshiro Mifune
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Picture Bride |
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Sixteen-year-old Riyo (Kudoh) arrives in Hawaii from Japan in 1918. She is a picture bride: pledged to marry a man she has never met save through a few photographs and letters. Hoping to escape a troubled past she is bitterly disappointed to learn that her husband is much older than he led her to believe, and Hawaii is not the island paradise (for her) that she had been led to believe. Her husband is a mere laborer in the sugar cane fields, not a plantation owner, and she must work hard too. Riyo works days in the fields, nights in a laundry, hoping to save enough to go back to Japan. She befriends a young mother named Kana (Tomita), and as the years pass, learns to cope with life's tragedies and small triumphs. Writer-director Kayo Hatta's beautifully shot 1994 film started as a UCLA film school project, but expanded into a feature. Hatta was especially lucky to get craggy, roaring old Mifune to do a cameo as "The Benshi" (narrator for the silent films). The result is a quiet, unspectacular but memorable film about the American dream as experienced by many Japanese immigrants (including my grandparents).
--David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Picture Bride |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about
books by breaking them down into many different literary
elements, all of which are searchable (click here). |
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie:
- 1900-1920's
Family, struggling with
Yes
Struggle with:
- Husband
Job/Profession/Poverty Story?
Yes
Job:
- blue collar common worker
Ethnic/Regional/Gender story?
Yes
Main Char. ethnic: (if not US Caucasian)
- Japanese
Woman/class/friends story?
- woman's story
- immigrant story
Story of city/rural life?
- Small Town
Culture clash?
- being oppressed by outside culture
Culture of surrounding area:
- American West
Poverty story?
Yes
Poverty plotlets:
- pioneering in countryside
- coping with poverty (general)
Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Profession/status:
- homemaker/wife
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Black)
Hair type
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn straight
Body type
- (woman) skinny
Events of movie makes character more...
- tougher
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Japanese
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- brunette (Black)
Hair style
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn straight
How much in movie?
- 80%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Japanese
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
Profession/status:
- farmer
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 60%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Japanese
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- Hawaii
Island?
Yes
Farm/Ranch?
Yes
Farm/Ranch:
- farm
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
Movie makes you feel...
- spiritual
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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