Aoi sanmyaku

Aoi sanmyaku (青い山脈; lit. Blue Mountain Range) is a 1949 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Tadashi Imai.^[1][3] It is based on Yōjirō Ishizaka's novel of the same name, which was first published in serialised form in 1947.^[4]

Aoi sanmyaku
Theatrical release poster
Kanji	青い山脈
Revised Hepburn	Aoi Sanmyaku
Directed by	Tadashi Imai
Screenplay by	Tadashi Imai Toshirō Ide
Based on	Blue Mountain Range by Yōjirō Ishizaka
Produced by	Sanezumi Fujimoto
Starring	Setsuko Hara Ryō Ikebe Michiyo Kogure Yōko Sugi
Cinematography	Asakazu Nakai
Music by	Ryoichi Hattori
Production companies	Fujimoto Production Toho
Distributed by	Toho
Release dates	July 19, 1949 (1949-07-19) (Part one)[1] July 26, 1949 (1949-07-26) (Part two)[2]
Running time	91 minutes (Part one)[1] 91 minutes (Part two)[2]
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Plot

After defending Shinko, student at a rural girls' high school, for seeing a young man from the village, teacher Yukiko, who has just been transferred from Tokyo, finds herself in opposition to the conservative faculty and villagers.

Cast

Actor	Role
Setsuko Hara	Yukiko Shimazaki
Ryō Ikebe	Rokusuke Kaneya
Michiyo Kogure	Umetaro/Tora Sasai
Yōko Sugi	Shinko Terazawa
Ichiro Ryuzaki	Tamao Numata
Setsuko Wakayama	Kazuko Sasai
Kamatari Fujiwara	Okamoto-san

Production and legacy

Aoi sanmyaku was released in two parts, part one on July 19, 1949, part two one week later,^[1][2][3] and was highly successful both with the audience and the critics.^[5]

The film's popular theme song theme was sung by Ichiro Fujiyama and Mitsue Nara. Ishizaka's novel was adapted again in 1957, 1975 and 1988.^[4]

Reception

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited this movie as one of his 100 favorite films.^[6]