Screen Standing on the Edge of Light: Between Purity and Modernity (1953-1968) by Izumi Ashikawa

Screen Standing on the Edge of Light: Between Purity and Modernity (1953-1968) by Izumi Ashikawa

Izumi Ashikawa (1935 - 1998) was a purist actress who symbolized the postwar golden age of Nikkatsu. Discovered by Yuzo Kawashima, she made her debut in 1953 and left an impressive mark in her short career. Her transparent and understated performances impressed audiences with a "new purity," and she supported many films as an actress opposite Yujiro Ishihara and Asahi Kobayashi. Her first collaboration with Yujiro in "Nanny" (1956), in which she delicately portrayed a college girl shaken by a family secret, made her one of the most popular actresses of all time. In Kawashima's "Suzaki Paradise: Red Light" and "Bakumatsu Taiyouden," she had a natural presence in the ensemble dramas and played a role that changed the atmosphere of the scene. In "Hikari no Anaru Sakaido" (1958), she embodied the lights and shadows of urban life and youth during the period of rapid economic growth, evoking life-size empathy in the audience. While her contemporary Ruriko Asaoka showed urban streng
th, Yoko Minamida played a mature and glamorous woman, and Sayuri Yoshinaga established "eternal purity," Hazumi Ashikawa was positioned as "innocent with a shaky heart. In her personal life, she married Tatsuya Fuji and retired from the silver screen in 1968, but her beauty quality, which earned her the nickname "Japanese Audrey Hepburn," continued to be talked about. Her performance emphasizes silence and the gaze, reflecting the new image of women that postwar Japanese cinema sought to create. Her figure, which still shines in retrospectives today, is a testament to her understated yet certain radiance.