A Woman Called Sada Abe
実録阿部定
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The same 1936 case as Oshima's film, one year earlier, from inside the Roman Porno system.
Over a black screen, a woman's voice lists the names she has gone by. It is 1936, and Sada Abe is shut away in the Masaki, an assignation house in Ogu, with Kichizo Ishida, the master of the Yoshidaya restaurant in Nakano where she worked as a maid. Kichi says he will die if they go on like this. They make love in front of geisha and maids alike, and their games turn dangerous: Sada cuts herself, and they strangle each other in turn. When Kichi merely goes out for a shave, she accuses him of betraying her with his wife.
When the money runs out, Sada goes to Omiya, her old teacher and lover from her years in Nagoya, and sells herself to him. Soldiers march past a crowd listening to radio news of the army uprising of 26 February, and the lovers, uninterested, walk back to their room. After one strangling game Kichi's neck is badly marked; a doctor puts him on a liquid diet, and he says he will go home for a while to recover. Sada, jealous and unable to let him go, strangles him.
Beside the body, her past returns in flashbacks: thrown out by her well-off family after she was raped, she drifted around Japan as a prostitute and a barmaid until she came to the Yoshidaya. She cuts off Kichi's genitals, leaves the Masaki and goes to Omiya again. Then she is on the run, and the case becomes a national sensation. Talking with a masseur who has no idea who she is, she says Sada must have loved Kichi very much, to want the whole country to know about them. The police, tipped off, come to where she is hiding, and the film ends with her arrest.
Starring
Junko Miyashitaas Sada Abe
A 31-year-old former maid shut away with her employer in an assignation house, who kills him rather than let him go.
Sada Abe’s story
Sada has gone by many names. She is shut away at the Masaki with Kichi, master of the restaurant where she was a maid, wanting him at every hour. She accuses him of seeing his wife when he only goes out for a shave, and when the money runs out she sells herself to Omiya, her old teacher and lover. When a strangling game leaves Kichi set on going home to recover, she spills his medicine. He asks her, if she strangles him again, not to stop halfway; while he sleeps, she strangles him. Beside his body her past returns: a rape, a family that threw her out, years of selling herself. She cuts off his genitals and runs. To a masseur who does not know her, she says Sada must have loved Kichi very much. Then the police come.
Eimei Esumias Kichizo Ishida
The 41-year-old master of the Yoshidaya restaurant, who gives himself up to Sada's games and senses where they will end.
Kichizo Ishida’s story
Kichi has shut himself away at an assignation house with Sada, who once worked for him as a maid. He tells her he will die if they go on like this, and goes on. They make love in front of geisha and maids alike, and take turns strangling each other. When he goes out for a shave, she accuses him of seeing his wife. He and Sada turn away, uninterested, from a crowd listening to radio news of the army uprising. When one game leaves his neck red and swollen, he decides to go home for a while to recover, and Sada spills his medicine. Before he sleeps, he asks her, if she strangles him again, not to stop halfway, because it hurts too much afterwards. She strangles him.
Nagatoshi Sakamotoas Omiya
Sada's former teacher and lover from her Nagoya days, to whom she sells herself for money and returns after the killing.
Hiroshi Gojoas Masseur
A masseur who talks with Sada about the case without knowing she is the woman everyone is looking for.
Why it matters
A Woman Called Sada Abe told the 1936 case a year before Nagisa Oshima did, and from inside Nikkatsu's Roman Porno line rather than an international co-production. Its Japanese title promises a true record, and Noboru Tanaka keeps to the real names and places — the Yoshidaya, the Masaki in Ogu, the old teacher she went to for money — while setting them against soldiers marching and a radio reporting an attempted coup, a country arming itself as two people refuse to look up. He also gives Sada a history: a rape, a family that threw her out, years of selling herself. What the film puts in front of an audience is what a woman who has been passed from man to man might do with the one man she wants to own, and how a crime became a story the whole country wanted to hear. Kinema Junpo's critics ranked it tenth among the Japanese films of 1975.