Picture Bride (film)
Encyclopedia
Picture Bride is a 1995 feature-length independent film
directed by Kayo Hatta
from a screenplay she co-wrote with Mari Hatta, and co-produced by Diane Mei Lin Mark and Lisa Onodera
. It follows Riyo, who arrives in Hawaii
as a "picture bride
" for a man she has never met before. The story is based on the historical practice, due to U.S. anti-miscegenation laws
, of (mostly) Japanese and Korean immigrant laborers in the United States using long-distance matchmakers in their homelands to find wives.
Released by Miramax Films
, the film stars Youki Kudoh
, Akira Takayama, Tamlyn Tomita
, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
, with a special appearance by Toshirō Mifune
in his penultimate film role. Picture Bride premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival
, where it won the Audience Award for narrative feature film. Considered a landmark Asian American
work, the film was an Official Selection at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival
in the Un Certain Regard
section and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature (for director Hatta). In 2004, Miramax released a DVD version, which includes "The Picture Bride Journey," a documentary on the making of the film featuring the director, cast members, archival historical footage, and behind-the-scenes clips from the movie set.
in Hawaii. The film begins with the death of Riyo's father, which leads Riyo's aunt to make arrangements for Riyo to become a picture bride. As Riyo prepares to be photographed, her aunt shows her a picture of the handsome Matsuji (Takayama), her husband-to-be in Hawaii. Not only is the photo intended as introduction, but also as a means of confirming that each has found the right partner when they meet for the first time on the docks. However, when Riyo finally arrives in Honolulu, the man who comes to greet her looks nothing like the man in the photo. Matsuji confesses that the photo he sent was from some years back.
Riyo goes through with the wedding (in a mass ceremony with numerous other "picture couples"), and travels out to the sugar plantation which is her new home. As she walks past the darkened fields to their ramshackle house, Riyo hears a faint sound on the wind of a woman singing. When she asks about it, Matsuji half-jokes that the ghosts of the canefields have come to welcome her. That night, they sleep on the same mat, but Riyo fights off his attempts at sexual intimacy and hides beneath a blanket.
The next day, after she is given an ID tag to wear around her neck, Riyo goes to work in the sugar cane fields for the first time. As a city girl, she is unfamiliar with farm work and slows the other workers down,leading her to be harassed and ridiculed by Antone (James Grant Benton) the Luna (field supervisor). Yayoi (Kati Kuroda) prompts Kana (Tomita) to help the Riyo learn. Kana is a young picture bride who had arrived several years before. Later, Riyo finds out that Kana's husband, Kanzaki (Tagawa) frequently beats her and goes out gambling. To escape the abuse, at night Kana often brings her baby and sleeps in the fields, singing. One night, after an argument with Matsuji, Riyo runs off into the fields and discovers Kana. Riyo gains Kana's trust, and agrees to help the other woman with her side business doing laundry for the workers.
Riyo begins industriously doing laundry work and saving all her earnings in a tin can, determined to earn her passage back to Japan. Matsuji begins drinking and gambling, saying that he intends to win enough money to get another bride. Kana advises Matsuji to become romantic, and to take Rudolf Valentino as a role model in the task of winning Riyo's heart.
Antone the luna starts to drive the workers to do more work in order to meet the harvest in time. The women's leader, Yayoi, leaves with her family to Honolulu. As she leaves, she asks Kana to take care of the other women caneworkers.
In the fields, Kana and the other mothers are constantly worried about their children, who must be left, under a sunshade in the field when the parents are working. Kana tries to stand up against Antone to get the kids moved closer when the workers go to a new field. He threatens to use his whip on the workers, as he had done 'in the old days.'
Preparatory to harvesting, cane fields are set on fire to burn off the leaves. Antone, in a hurry to get the job done, orders the fire to be set before the women can retrieve their children. In the meantime, Kana's baby daughter, Kei, has wandered into the fields. Kana rushes into the burning field to find her daughter, and both are lost.
The workers talk about waging a strike. Meanwhile, Riyo continues to hear the sound of a woman singing in the canefields. One night, she leaves the house to follow the sound, and Matsuji follows her. He accuses her of having a secret lover and a chase ensues. Then, Riyo admits that her parents had died of tuberculosis, which at that time carried tremendous social stigma. Although Riyo herself was healthy, the matchmaker had lied to Matsuji about his bride-to-be's outcast status. That night, when Riyo tentatively reaches out to him as they lie in bed, he brusquely turns away.
Betrayed, the next day Riyo gathers her savings and a few belongings and runs away, eventually finding herself at the ocean. Riyo falls asleep there. She is awakened by the sound of singing, and glimpses a woman walking among the shoreline rocks. She runs after the vision, and encounters Kana, who says she is leaving for Japan. When Riyo asks the go with her, Kana criticizes her, not unkindly: "Who waiting for you there?" Then, as Yayoi had done when she left the plantation, Kana hands her neck tag to Riyo and tells her "Take care of the girls." Kana turns to walk toward the sea, fading out of sight.
Riyo awakes from her sleep, and finds Kana's neck tag in her hand. She returns to the plantation and to her house, where she finds Matsuji drunk. She puts him to bed, and he looks at her, saying "I thought I was all alone again." Later that night, she hesitantly reaches out to touch his hand, and he reaches back; they embrace.
The next day, Riyo surprises the other workers when she begins singing in the fields, as had Kana and Yayo. Antone tries to make fun of her, but she continues singing more strongly, and he realizes that she has picked up the mantle of leadership. Matsuji makes a gift to Riyo of a Buddhist altar, so she can honor her parents. She is touched at his acceptance of her past.
The film ends as Riyo, Matsuji, and the other workers dance in a circle at a lively Bon Festival
. In a closing voiceover (by Nobu McCarthy
), an older Riyo describes how she still imagines at times that she hears a woman's voice singing, but then realizes it is the voice of Riyo's own daughter as she sings to her children.
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
directed by Kayo Hatta
Kayo Hatta
Kayo Hatta was an Asian American filmmaker, writer, and community activist. She directed and co-wrote the independent dramatic feature-length film Picture Bride, which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award in 1995 for Best Dramatic Film.-Early Life:Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hatta grew up...
from a screenplay she co-wrote with Mari Hatta, and co-produced by Diane Mei Lin Mark and Lisa Onodera
Lisa Onodera
Lisa Onodera is an American independent film producer, of such noted films as Picture Bride, The Debut and Americanese. She grew up in Berkeley, California, and attended UCLA where she received a degree from the School of Motion Picture and Television.Early film credits include serving as...
. It follows Riyo, who arrives in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
as a "picture bride
Picture bride
The term picture bride refers to the practice in the early 20th century of immigrant workers in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States selecting brides from their native countries via a matchmaker, who paired bride and groom using only photographs and family recommendations of the possible...
" for a man she has never met before. The story is based on the historical practice, due to U.S. anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
, of (mostly) Japanese and Korean immigrant laborers in the United States using long-distance matchmakers in their homelands to find wives.
Released by Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
, the film stars Youki Kudoh
Youki Kudoh
is a Japanese actress and singer. She won the award for best newcomer at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival for The Crazy Family. She also won the award for best actress at the 16th Hochi Film Award for War and Youth.-Filmography:-External links:* *...
, Akira Takayama, Tamlyn Tomita
Tamlyn Tomita
Tamlyn Naomi Tomita is an actress, who has appeared in many Hollywood films and television series.-Early life:Tomita was born in Okinawa, the daughter of Shiro and Asako Tomita. Her father then later became a Los Angeles Police Officer, rising to the rank of sergeant. He succumbed to cancer in...
, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
is a Japanese-American actor.In addition to his extensive film work, he has appeared on television in Star Trek: The Next Generation - "Encounter at Farpoint" , Thunder in Paradise , Nash Bridges , Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding , and Heroes . He also provided the voice of Sin Tzu for the video game...
, with a special appearance by Toshirō Mifune
Toshiro Mifune
Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo...
in his penultimate film role. Picture Bride premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, where it won the Audience Award for narrative feature film. Considered a landmark Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
work, the film was an Official Selection at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival
1994 Cannes Film Festival
The 1994 Cannes Film Festival started on 12 May and ran until 23 May. The Palme d'Or went to the American film Pulp Fiction directed by Quentin Tarantino.-Official Selection:*Clint Eastwood *Catherine Deneuve...
in the Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection. It is run at the Salle Debussy, parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or.This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob...
section and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature (for director Hatta). In 2004, Miramax released a DVD version, which includes "The Picture Bride Journey," a documentary on the making of the film featuring the director, cast members, archival historical footage, and behind-the-scenes clips from the movie set.
Plot
The film is set in 1918. Riyo (Kudoh) is a "city girl", who becomes a picture bride to a man who works as a field hand on a sugar cane plantationPlantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
in Hawaii. The film begins with the death of Riyo's father, which leads Riyo's aunt to make arrangements for Riyo to become a picture bride. As Riyo prepares to be photographed, her aunt shows her a picture of the handsome Matsuji (Takayama), her husband-to-be in Hawaii. Not only is the photo intended as introduction, but also as a means of confirming that each has found the right partner when they meet for the first time on the docks. However, when Riyo finally arrives in Honolulu, the man who comes to greet her looks nothing like the man in the photo. Matsuji confesses that the photo he sent was from some years back.
Riyo goes through with the wedding (in a mass ceremony with numerous other "picture couples"), and travels out to the sugar plantation which is her new home. As she walks past the darkened fields to their ramshackle house, Riyo hears a faint sound on the wind of a woman singing. When she asks about it, Matsuji half-jokes that the ghosts of the canefields have come to welcome her. That night, they sleep on the same mat, but Riyo fights off his attempts at sexual intimacy and hides beneath a blanket.
The next day, after she is given an ID tag to wear around her neck, Riyo goes to work in the sugar cane fields for the first time. As a city girl, she is unfamiliar with farm work and slows the other workers down,leading her to be harassed and ridiculed by Antone (James Grant Benton) the Luna (field supervisor). Yayoi (Kati Kuroda) prompts Kana (Tomita) to help the Riyo learn. Kana is a young picture bride who had arrived several years before. Later, Riyo finds out that Kana's husband, Kanzaki (Tagawa) frequently beats her and goes out gambling. To escape the abuse, at night Kana often brings her baby and sleeps in the fields, singing. One night, after an argument with Matsuji, Riyo runs off into the fields and discovers Kana. Riyo gains Kana's trust, and agrees to help the other woman with her side business doing laundry for the workers.
Riyo begins industriously doing laundry work and saving all her earnings in a tin can, determined to earn her passage back to Japan. Matsuji begins drinking and gambling, saying that he intends to win enough money to get another bride. Kana advises Matsuji to become romantic, and to take Rudolf Valentino as a role model in the task of winning Riyo's heart.
Antone the luna starts to drive the workers to do more work in order to meet the harvest in time. The women's leader, Yayoi, leaves with her family to Honolulu. As she leaves, she asks Kana to take care of the other women caneworkers.
In the fields, Kana and the other mothers are constantly worried about their children, who must be left, under a sunshade in the field when the parents are working. Kana tries to stand up against Antone to get the kids moved closer when the workers go to a new field. He threatens to use his whip on the workers, as he had done 'in the old days.'
Preparatory to harvesting, cane fields are set on fire to burn off the leaves. Antone, in a hurry to get the job done, orders the fire to be set before the women can retrieve their children. In the meantime, Kana's baby daughter, Kei, has wandered into the fields. Kana rushes into the burning field to find her daughter, and both are lost.
The workers talk about waging a strike. Meanwhile, Riyo continues to hear the sound of a woman singing in the canefields. One night, she leaves the house to follow the sound, and Matsuji follows her. He accuses her of having a secret lover and a chase ensues. Then, Riyo admits that her parents had died of tuberculosis, which at that time carried tremendous social stigma. Although Riyo herself was healthy, the matchmaker had lied to Matsuji about his bride-to-be's outcast status. That night, when Riyo tentatively reaches out to him as they lie in bed, he brusquely turns away.
Betrayed, the next day Riyo gathers her savings and a few belongings and runs away, eventually finding herself at the ocean. Riyo falls asleep there. She is awakened by the sound of singing, and glimpses a woman walking among the shoreline rocks. She runs after the vision, and encounters Kana, who says she is leaving for Japan. When Riyo asks the go with her, Kana criticizes her, not unkindly: "Who waiting for you there?" Then, as Yayoi had done when she left the plantation, Kana hands her neck tag to Riyo and tells her "Take care of the girls." Kana turns to walk toward the sea, fading out of sight.
Riyo awakes from her sleep, and finds Kana's neck tag in her hand. She returns to the plantation and to her house, where she finds Matsuji drunk. She puts him to bed, and he looks at her, saying "I thought I was all alone again." Later that night, she hesitantly reaches out to touch his hand, and he reaches back; they embrace.
The next day, Riyo surprises the other workers when she begins singing in the fields, as had Kana and Yayo. Antone tries to make fun of her, but she continues singing more strongly, and he realizes that she has picked up the mantle of leadership. Matsuji makes a gift to Riyo of a Buddhist altar, so she can honor her parents. She is touched at his acceptance of her past.
The film ends as Riyo, Matsuji, and the other workers dance in a circle at a lively Bon Festival
Bon Festival
or just is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist-Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed...
. In a closing voiceover (by Nobu McCarthy
Nobu McCarthy
Nobu McCarthy was a Japanese Canadian actress, stage director, and fashion model.-Early life:McCarthy was born Nobu Atsumi in Ottawa, Ontario, the daughter of Yuki and Masaji Atsumi, a Japanese fashion designer and diplomatic attache stationed in Canada at the time. She was raised in Japan, where...
), an older Riyo describes how she still imagines at times that she hears a woman's voice singing, but then realizes it is the voice of Riyo's own daughter as she sings to her children.
Cast
- Youki KudohYouki Kudohis a Japanese actress and singer. She won the award for best newcomer at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival for The Crazy Family. She also won the award for best actress at the 16th Hochi Film Award for War and Youth.-Filmography:-External links:* *...
- Riyo - Cary-Hiroyuki TagawaCary-Hiroyuki Tagawais a Japanese-American actor.In addition to his extensive film work, he has appeared on television in Star Trek: The Next Generation - "Encounter at Farpoint" , Thunder in Paradise , Nash Bridges , Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding , and Heroes . He also provided the voice of Sin Tzu for the video game...
- Kanzaki - Tamlyn TomitaTamlyn TomitaTamlyn Naomi Tomita is an actress, who has appeared in many Hollywood films and television series.-Early life:Tomita was born in Okinawa, the daughter of Shiro and Asako Tomita. Her father then later became a Los Angeles Police Officer, rising to the rank of sergeant. He succumbed to cancer in...
- Kana - Akira Takayama - Matsuji
- Yôko Sugi - Aunt Sode
- Christianne Mays - Miss Pieper
- Toshirô MifuneToshiro MifuneToshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo...
- The Benshi - Jason Scott Lee
Cameos
- Toshiro Mifune's plays a short part as a BenshiBenshiwere Japanese performers who provided live narration for silent films . Benshi are sometimes also called or .-Role of the benshi:...
, a Japanese performer who acts as a narrator for silent films.
- Actor Jason Scott Lee plays an uncredited cameo role as a Japanese laborer during a scene when the workers collect their pay and an inter-ethnic fight nearly erupts.
- A number of renowned Hawaii-based performers appeared in cameo roles, including the late Moe Keale and taiko artist Kenny Endo.
- Yoko Sugi, one of Japan's leading post-war actresses (starring in films by Kon IchikawaKon Ichikawawas a Japanese film director.-Early life and career:Ichikawa was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture. In the 1930s Ichikawa attended a technical school in Osaka. Upon graduation, in 1933, he found a job with a local rental film studio, J.O. Studio, in their animation department...
and Mikio NaruseMikio Narusewas a Japanese filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed some 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967.Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook...
, among others), appears briefly early in the film, as Riyo's aunt.
External links
- Picture Bride at the IMDB