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Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts

Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts is a 1935 Japanese drama film written and directed by Mikio Naruse. Based on the short story Sisters of Asakusa by Yasunari Kawabata, it was the director's first sound film.

Plot
O-Ren, O-Some and Chieko are the daughters of a hardened, middle-aged woman who runs a business of shamisen players, earning their money on their nightly rounds in bars in Asakusa. While O-Some still works in her mother's business, Chieko, her younger sister, is a nightclub dancer. O-Ren, the eldest, tries to settle for a domestic life with her boyfriend Kosugi in an attempt to escape the half-world she has been associated with. In need of money, O-Ren lures Aoyama (unaware that he is Chieko's boyfriend) into an apartment, where her gangster friends threaten him. O-Some, who witnesses the crime, is hurt with a knife when she interferes to help Aoyama. Although she knows of O-Ren's scheme, O-Some bids her sister and Kosugi good-bye at the train station. Left alone in pain in the waiting room, O-Some murmurs, "that turned out good". ==Cast==
Cast
• Chikako Hosokawa as O-Ren, the eldest sister • Masako Tsutsumi as O-Some, the middle sister • Ryuko Umezono as Chieko, the youngest sister • Chitose Hayashi as the mother • Chisato Matsumoto as O-Haru • Masako Sanjo as O-Shima • Mariyo Matsumoto as O-Kinu • Heihachirō Ōkawa as Aoyama, Chieko's boyfriend • Osamu Takizawa as Kosugi, O-Ren's boyfriend ==Background==
Background
Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts was Naruse's first film for the P.C.L. film studio (later Toho) after his move from Shochiku. Naruse would remain affiliated with P.C.L./Toho for the rest of his professional career until 1967. In 1954, he adapted another work by Kawabata with his film Sound of the Mountain. ==Legacy==
Legacy
Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts was shown in the U.S. as part of a Naruse retrospective in 1985, organised by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute and film scholar Audie Bock. ==Bibliography==
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