Sadao Yamanaka

 Sadao Yamanka




The Million Ryo Pot (1935)

Priest of Darkness (1936)

Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937)



RANKED:

3. Priest of Darkness (1936)


In Sadao Yamanak's 1936 "Priest of Darkness," a chain of consequences emerge after a simple theft. Its characters get tangled in a web of theft, secrecy, debt, and sacrifice all because of the complex social dynamics between them. The film does a great job of illustrating the complex nature of human relationships in Japan which creates the story's tension and drama. 



2. Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937)


The third and final film of Sadao Yamanaka's brief career, "Humanity and Paper Balloons," was also the film that ended his career. The film features a group of characters who share in the same sentiments of destitution, shame, alcoholism, and unfulfilled prosperity. It is a film that demonstrates the malaise and hopelessness in the depressive atmosphere of Japan at the time. A Japan whose state government was actively at war and building its militia and needed patriotism and the glorification of its past to be exhalated. Because Yamanaka's film was so blatantly antipatriotic, full of lower class resentment, and filled with shame and disgrace of the state of Japan, the government sent Yamanaka off to the Chinese front and thereby, sent him to his death. What remains of his career are 3 films that exemplify Japanese culture, community, and sentiment. His final film, "Humanity and Paper Balloons," exemplifies the perfect encapsulation of the type of hopelessness that faced Japan's immediate future and even his own future. 



1. The Million Ryo Pot (1935)


1935 was the first year that Japan transitioned to sound films. One of the many filmmakers that utilized the new soundscape was young hot-shot director Sadao Yamanaka. In his 1935 film "The Million Ryo Pot," a group of colorful characters all go out searching the city of Edo for a valuable monkey pot conscribed with a hidden treasure map, showing the location of a million Ryo. As the film progresses, the interest in the pot falls away and the structure and unity of the characters and their engrossing relationships start to become the focal point of the film. In the end, none of them really want the money. Instead, they value the sense of community and the makeshift family the created in the process.



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