Hero of the Red-Light District (Japanese: 妖刀物語 花の吉原百人斬り, Hepburn: Yoto monogatari: Hana no Yoshiwara hyakunin giri), also titled Yoshiwara: The Pleasure Quarter or Killing in Yoshiwara, is a 1960 Japanese jidaigeki and drama film by Tomu Uchida.
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Plot
Jirozaemon, a successful textile merchant from the provinces, cannot find a wife because of his disfiguring birthmark. Even the courtesans in Yoshiwara refuse to entertain him. When he meets enslaved street prostitute Tamatsuru, who treats him with kindness, he falls in love with her, intent to free and marry her, which leads to his downfall.
Cast
Chiezō Kataoka as Jirozaemon
Yaeko Mizutani as Tamatsuru (credited as Yoshie Mizutani)
Isao Kimura as Einojo
Minoru Chiaki as Josuke
Shinobu Chihara as Yaegaki
Legacy
In his Story of Cinema, David Shipman declared Uchida "the equal of Mizoguchi and Kinugasa" for this film, while film historian Alexander Jacoby rated it as "ultimately one of his [Uchida's] most conventional" works and "academic".
Hero of the Red-Light District was screened in the Museum of Modern Art as part of a retrospective on Tomu Uchida in 2016.