Overview
A tale of forbidden love and desperate choices unfolds in 17th-century Japan.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Extreme
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- tragic
- melancholic
- austere
- classic cinema night
- quiet reflective evening
What critics said
Critics broadly regard Mizoguchi’s rigorously composed period romance as a devastating and visually masterful tragedy.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Osan and Mohei's relationship is pursued under constant pressure from scandal, accusation, and communal judgment.
An unfulfilled debt, the burden on Osan's family, and the scroll business's financial pressures initiate the crisis.
Mizoguchi's period mise-en-scène follows the fugitives through Kyoto households, roads, and Osaka streets with formal distance.
Mohei and Osan flee the printer's household while facing accusations, rumors, and threats across seventeenth-century Osaka.
Films like The Crucified Lovers, and why
The Life of Oharu
period romance, social constraint, doomed lovers, and austere emotional intensity
Ugetsu
classical japanese drama, forbidden desire, rigid social hierarchy, and tragic romantic fatalism
Sansho the Bailiff
historical romance shaped by oppressive custom, escape, and an uncompromising tragic tone
The Earrings of Madame de...
doomed love, moral pressure, and stylized period drama centered on social entrapment
Movie Details
- Director
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Release Date
- 1954-11-23
- Runtime
- 102 min
- Rating
- 7.8 / 10 (158)
Cast
- Kazuo Hasegawa
- Kyōko Kagawa
- Eitarō Shindō
- Eitarō Ozawa
- Yōko Minamida
- Haruo Tanaka
- Chieko Naniwa
- Ichirō Sugai
- Tatsuya Ishiguro
- Hiroshi Mizuno
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Criterion Channel
- Rent
- Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home
- Buy
- Apple TV Store, Fandango At Home
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is The Crucified Lovers about?
- A forbidden love story follows a printer’s wife and her compassionate employee through debt, scandal, and a desperate flight across Edo-period Japan.
- What is The Crucified Lovers like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of The Crucified Lovers as measured, its intensity as extreme and its storytelling as layered.
- Is The Crucified Lovers violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in The Crucified Lovers as mild.
- What did critics think of The Crucified Lovers?
- Critics broadly regard Mizoguchi’s rigorously composed period romance as a devastating and visually masterful tragedy.
- Which films are like The Crucified Lovers?
- Films with a similar feel include The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, and The Earrings of Madame de....
- How long is The Crucified Lovers?
- The Crucified Lovers runs 102 minutes.
- Where can I watch The Crucified Lovers?
- In United States, The Crucified Lovers streams on Criterion Channel.
