Lustrous and limpid - Awaji Keiko's pride in blooming on the silver screen (1950s and 1960s)

Lustrous and limpid - Awaji Keiko's pride in blooming on the silver screen (1950s and 1960s)

Keiko Awaji (born in 1933) was a signature actress for Toho during the golden age of postwar Japanese cinema. In the late 1950s and 1960s, when Japanese cinema was maturing after the postwar turmoil, Awaji presented a new image of a woman with both elegant beauty and a strong will. Her masterpiece is Akira Kurosawa's "Yojinbo" (1961), in which she quietly and powerfully imprinted the image of a noble woman living a noble life. In "The Wicked Sleep Better" (1960), she played a heroine caught up in the corrupt structure of a corporation, showing a flexible acting ability that could handle social suspense. Compared to her contemporaries such as Setsuko Hara, Machiko Kyo, and Fumiko Wakao, Awaji's performance was full of intelligence and a sense of reality, and she was described as the embodiment of "the graceful commoner. Even after the heyday of television, Awaji expanded her activities to the stage and variety shows, and in her later years she became well known for her tongue-
in-cheek character, but at the core of her character was an unwavering pride in her work from beginning to end. What she embodied was not only beauty, but also the image of a strong woman living in postwar Japan, a dignified flower that bloomed on the silver screen.