Synopsis
Okoma, a witty young woman working as a conductor in an old, rickety bus in Kōfu, Yamanashi (rural Japan), has a creative idea that could avert the dwindling number of passengers when her job and the bus company itself are at stake.
Hideko the Bus Conductor
Cast
Director
Writer
Original Writer
Cinematography
Executive Producer
Lighting
Art Direction
Composer
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Alternative Titles
Hideko no shashô-san, Hideko, the Bus Conductress, Hideko, la cobradora de autobús, Hideko, receveuse d'autobus, 버스차장 히데코, Хидэко, кондукторша автобуса, 售票员秀子
Releases by Date
Theatrical limited
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Russian Federation
Theatrical
17 Sep 1941
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
17 Sep 1941
- Theatrical
Russian Federation
05 May 2001
- Theatrical limited Retrospective of Mikio Naruse (Moscow)
Popular reviews
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Despite the fact that Takamine Hideko and Naruse Mikio made their debuts around the same time at Shochiku—Takamine in the 1929 hit Mother at the tender age of five, and Naruse, after years of apprenticeship, helmed his first directorial effort, Mr. and Mrs. Swordplay, in 1930 at the age of twenty-five—and both were whisked away in the mid-thirties by the company that emerged as Toho, Shochiku's strongest rival, their paths did not cross until 1941's fifty-four minute Hideko the Bus Conductress (Hideko no shasho-san). If Takamine spent her early years working with the likes of Gosho Heinosuke and Yamamoto Kajirô, Naruse, who rarely made films about children, generally favored Chiba Sachiko as his lead, with whom he ended up sharing…
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"Hideko no shashô-san" aka "Hideko, the Bus Conductor" was a simple but sweet movie, IMO.
The first collaboration out of 16 (I believe) between Hideko Takamine and master Mikio Naruse.The plot is quite simple and plain. There's not a lot of depth (also not that much length) but there's some lightheartedness, a moral (and then realistic) angle and some funny/entertaining bits too.
A(n around) 17 year old talented Hideko Takamine leads the way on this one with a quite adorable, sweet and youthful performance, accompanied by Kamatari Fujiwara.
Reminiscent of "Mr. Thank You".
Also provides some sightseeing views.The ending was sort of dual, as there's both a positive and negative outlook about how things end up.
Overall, a quite simple, lighthearted and yet satisfying tale, IMO. If nothing else, it marks the start of a great and long collaboration between Hideko Takamine and Mikio Naruse, which is noteworthy by itself.
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Staying true to yourself in the face of the world's disappointments and indifferent cruelties; learning, finding your confidence, sharing stories with a smile and wishing friends well on their way. Making the road your own. Love you Hideko <3
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This may sound a very small appreciation for Naruse's film as a whole, but I was impressed throughout by the brave use of light, mostly the sunlight on hot middle-of-summer days. Each character is wrapped in their buckled jacket of discomfort, often shooting scenes during the middle of the day, when shadows are most often harsh and demand an amendment of bounce light, or strict attention to balance and stock contrast by the DP. The delight of a popsicle or soda pop becomes a great restorative, if only for a few minutes. The slightest breeze from a fan or even walking into a shady spot becomes noteworthy by an entire body as sweat drips down one's face for hours. The…
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3rd Mikio Naruse (after Wife, Be Like a Rose! and Spring Awakens)
A winning short by Naruse, Hideko... may ultimately be too compact to class it as a major work, but that doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable. Set in rural Japan, the titular Hideko has the idea to revive flagging passenger numbers by introducing a guided tour, which she commissions from a local writer. The film has a nice ironic end, which I won't spoil, but it ties in with Naruse's keen sense of the subject. It was also Naruse's first collaboration with Hideko Takamine, who would go on to star in many of his post-war films, and it's evident here that they work well together. She has a spirited…
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A cinema of learning which flows from Shimizu. It documents three learning processes in particular. First: learning how to act. This is a meta-film about Hideko Takamine learning how to act in a Naruse film. The Hideko in the title does not refer to the name of a character, but to the name of the actor. In the story, she undergoes a process of learning how to perform; learning the importance of gesture and vocal intonation, and keeping her audience enthralled. This narrative process parallels the contextual situation. Though from this point on she would receive very little direction from Naruse, who generally made no comments or suggestions to her, aside from initial instruction of the scene. This unusual technique…
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Just lovely, really. Probably the most subversive of all the Naruse films I've seen so far. There's so much jauntiness throughout, particularly at the beginning and the end but lurking underneath it all is some really dark criticism of a more modern capitalist Japan and so on. Whereas in his earlier films, the hospital scenes are used climactically, here Hideko's accident is not dwelt upon at all. She recovers almost miraculously. There's such a sweetness to the film (Hideko Takamine contributes a ton to that, no doubt) and that just makes the ending even more tragic to me. It reads like a personal triumph perhaps but I can't help but think it's all going to be rather short-lived.
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Aww, this is just lovely. Good deeds and helpful gestures send ripples outward, happiness spreads like sound waves... but they're not enough to have any lasting impact.
Charulata, Derek Smith, Karl J Kipling, and DMC all get it; the reviews on this movie's home page already say everything I felt about this.
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Inevitably evoking Shimizu’s Mr. Thank You, Naruse’s deceptively breezy star vehicle for Hideko Takamine turns a backwater bus route into a rebellious point of anti-capitalist contestation. Remarkably uninterested in doing her job efficiently, Okoma sees no problem stopping her rickety old bus to have a leisurely chat with her mother or to catch a passenger’s wayward chicken; everyone will get to where they’re going sooner or later, but arriving at a destination only matters as much as all the life that happens along the way. While their shady boss focuses only on the bottom line (“Our company is like a bunch of hoodlums!”), Okoma and her colleague just want what’s best for people, to make the journey as pleasant and…
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a small, lovely film i'll cherish for a long time. takamine, sorry, hideko, is just wonderful. how often do we get the real life name of the actress as the film's moniker?!
please read arsaibgilbert's much more detailed review: letterboxd.com/arsaib/film/hideko-the-bus-conductress/
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A poignant, miniature shaggy dog of the type only Naruse could pull off: life as a string of modest successes and mounting satisfactions just waiting to be casually swatted down like a fly. This is a film about the fly's last, blissful few moments, and the ending, a pair of smiles that echo as a death rattle, triggers about a million different emotions at once.
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A low-stakes dramedy, Hideko, the Bus Conductress is very likable but not as compelling as it could be. The humor doesn't quite land, but lead actress Hideko Takamine has a very magnetic quality about her. This was my first exposure to the vast filmography of Mikio Naruse. I am very interested in exploring him further and hopefully finding films that will grip me more. As it stands, this wasn't a bad intro.