The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka

Karl J. Kipling

About an hour into it I was sure it would turn out a masterpiece. Wakao Ayoko is the hard-luck wife of Ichikawa Raizo's monomaniac doctor; her mother-in-law the village beauty she's idolized all her life - only to find that the woman (Takamine Hideko sans eyebrows) is a rather sinister customer. Unfortunately the movie veers from the women's duel to duller Raizo's quest for anesthetic and interest dribbles away.

Alex

3.5