Sisters of the Gion (祇園の姉妹) is one of Mizoguchi's early films about prostitution, and although it doesn't possess the high dramatics or suicidal tendencies of the famous bunraku plays (the songs of which one of the characters is constantly singing), Sisters of the Gion is, in many ways indebted to those stories of desperation and loneliness.
Still, I didn't love the filmmaking here – it's early Mizoguchi, and this is a film from 1936, so I shouldn't judge it the same as I would his later work, but it moves awkwardly, without really gaining a good flow – although the storytelling is excellent.
I watched this on the Criterion Channel. It's been a movie on my list to see for a very long time, since I saw my first Mizoguchi film back in the summer of 2007!
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