Shûbun

Year: 1950
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Shirley Yamaguchi, Yôko Katsuragi
Genre: drama
Runtime: 104 min.
Age: 16+
Japan, 1949. Famous singer Miyako Saijo, who is publicity shy, and motorbiking artist Ichirô Aoye, who has minor celebrity, meet by chance in Kappazawa while Ichirô is on a painting expedition, and Miyako is on a retreat. As she has missed her bus to Kaminoyu and as Ichirô is heading there anyway, he offers her a ride to the resort where both of them are staying and which is largely empty as it is the off season. As he visits her in her room solely as a measure of friendship and camaraderie, they are unaware that a paparazzi working for scandal sheet Amour has taken a photograph of the two of them together on her balcony. Hori, Amour's publisher, decides to print the photograph along with an accompanying salacious story on what could have happened based on the photograph, but which is a total fabrication. Hori has done such before with other celebrities, never having been sued as he believes his subjects either like the publicity or are too busy or scared to take action. But Aoye, really outrages by the false scandal, isn’t going to give up.