Kenji Mizoguchi's Fallen Women (Criterion Collection, 4 DVDs)

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Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in male-dominated Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of socially conscious melodrama - two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame) - Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are economically and spiritually deprived by their nation's customs and traditions. With Mizoguchi's visual daring and eloquence, these films are as cinematically thrilling as they are politically rousing.

Contains:
- Osaka Elegy (1936) 71 minutes
- Sisters of the Gion (1936) 69 minutes
- Women of the Night (1948) 74 minutes
- Street of Shame (1956) 85 minutes