Victory of Women

Follows the life of an illegitimate son of a kabuki actor.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Released in 2 parts. His only release of 1931. Considered a lost film.

In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

When the wife of a 17th-century Kyoto scrollmaker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves truly falling for one another.

In late 19th-century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that the praise he receives is only due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully joins him.

During the Edo Period, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall.

Follows five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation debates the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.

A servant girl is seduced and abandoned by her lover, a man from a higher social class, forcing her to navigate a harsh world as an itinerant performer to survive and raise their child.

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.

Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the Tokyo brothels provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women vie for lovers, and, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble.

A geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto feels obliged to help her lover when he asks to stay with her after going bankrupt and leaving his wife. However, her younger sister opposes this, thinking that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them.

When wealthy Ochika marries desolute Danpei, she devotes herself completely to him and takes over her business, to the point of sowing dissensions within the Jōruri troupe in which her husband plays.

Stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.

A lost Mizoguchi film.