弁天小僧(1958)
演员：
影评：
It is my first time reading a kabuki play and to be honest I was not expecting it to be so interesting. It was like playing through a RPG video game and the characters are all so vivid that I can imagine how they actually talks. I wish I cound read the original play in Japanase as I am sure many wonderful things are lost in translation. There are quite a lot of funny scenes in this story, and the one that I like the most was the part Nango teach Senju what to say to Benten if he refuse to speak to her, and the princess said "end my life and then pull out the dagger" without realizing her lines stops with "end my life". It's funny because she isn't very bright and a lot of her reaction was hilarious too. To me the most memorable character was Daemon, he is smart and really good at setting up a scam, and he is also good at fighting too. He steals from the rich and give them to the ones needed, kind of like Robin Hood.
The play was really dramatic and there's a lot of turning points that makes the story so pleasing to read. One being Jusaburo stole the money and got caught, he tried to kill himself out of shame but was saved by Tadanobu, who gave him the money he stoled. Another one is when Daemon and Benten rob Kobe and Sonosuke's shop, (Sonosuke being the son of Kobe), they found out that Kobe is actually the real father of Benten and Daemon is the real father of Sonosuke, it is kind of ironic that they realized that truth in that situation. I like the ending because Benten killed himself. He do deserve to die after what he did to Kotarou and Senju. Daemon also turned himself in even though he had the chance to escape when he knew that all of his fellow thieves are either dead or captured, that was really moving. It strikes me that when a lordless samurai, or a ronin, needs to became a thief to survive in the late Tokugawa Japan. It really shows that there is a major problem with Japan's economic and society at that time. The cherry blossom is beautiful like yougn men and women but only last a few days, that represents the young lives lost due to many diffirent reasons. I think that is also why a lot of japanese kill themselves young based on that concept. I like the story but there is one plot that I don't understand. Why go through all the fuss of Benten swindle the 100 ryo at Kobe's shop and then Daemon revealing them, and then they rob everything. If they plan to rob everything, what is the point of the initial set up?