The Stage Reflected in Silence - Asami Kuji and the Turning Point of Postwar Japanese Cinema (1945-1960s)

The Stage Reflected in Silence - Asami Kuji and the Turning Point of Postwar Japanese Cinema (1945-1960s)

Asami Kuji (1922-1996) was an actress who embodied a new image of women in postwar Japanese cinema after her spectacular stage career as the former top male star of the Tsukihime troupe of the Takarazuka Revue Company. Born in the Taisho era (1912-1926), she began her career in the chaotic period immediately following the defeat in World War II, and gained recognition in the "President Series" of films.

Postwar Japan was recovering from the devastation of the war, and the film industry was undergoing major changes along with the budding urbanization and consumer society. In the 1950s, the direction of the film industry shifted from realism, which depicted poverty and turmoil, to entertainment films that portrayed hope and cheerfulness, and Asami Kuji appeared on the screen as a "ray of hope. She combined the flamboyant poise she had developed during her Takarazuka years with a new postwar female attitude, and played a natural role as a woman searching for her place in a society that was different from the one she had known before the war.

One of her best-known works is "Embrace the Sun" (1960), in which she played the role of Setsuko Sanjo and softly portrayed the psychology of a woman caught between work and family, albeit in a comedic way. In the Toho President series, she played the wife of the president, secretary, and other women in professional and personal positions, shedding light on the new relationship of "work" among women in the postwar era.

Looking at actresses of the same generation, while Takamine Hideko and Hara Setsuko were actresses with "inner strength" who embodied the transition period between the prewar and postwar eras, Kuji Asami was an actress with "stage grace" and "everyday life. Asami Kuji was an actress with both "stage grace" and "everyday life. Her background as a Takarazuka actress also contributed to her characterization as a bridge between the traditional and modern images of women.

As postwar society shifted from a value system in which women should stay at home to a new value system in which women should be involved in society, Kuji Asami was exposed to the waves of change, but she built an image of a clear and independent woman. The women played by Kuji Asami are a mirror of postwar Japan's "reconstruction" and "reorganization of everyday life" and occupy an important place in the history of cinema. She is one of the actresses who transformed the Showa era from "the glitter of the stage" to "the hope of the common people.