Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka (1959) Plot Summary Explained

Release, runtime and language

1959 · 105 mins · Japanese

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Directed by

Tomu Uchida

Starring

Eijirô Tôno, Chieko Naniwa, Ineko Arima, Kinuyo Tanaka, Minoru Chiaki, Eitarô Shindô

An adopted son of an Osaka courier falls for a prostitute who is about to be sold. He steals his employer’s money to buy her freedom, and the two flee to Yamato. Like characters in Chikamatsu’s sewamono tragedies, they are pursued and their love ends in death. Uchida revisits his themes of prostitute indenture, inserting Chikamatsu as a character, a meta‑dramatic twist praised as “extraordinary.”