DRAGNET GIRL (1933)

Hiroshi (Kōji Mitsui) and Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) are queer-coded characters in Yasujirō Ozu’s 1933 Japanese silent film HIJŌSEN NO ONNA (aka DRAGNET GIRL).

HIJŌSEN NO ONNA (aka DRAGNET GIRL)

1933. Japan.

 Director: Yasujirō Ozu

Screenplay: Tadao Ikeda

 Starring: Kinuyo Tanaka, Jôji Oka, Sumiko Mizukubo, Kōji Mitsui, Yumeko Aizome, Yoshio Takayama, Kôji Kaga and Yasuo Nanjo

DRAGNET GIRL is the story of Joji, a former professional boxer turned gangster, who falls in love with a shop girl named Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo) – much to the dismay of his girlfriend Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka), who becomes increasingly jealous.

There are a couple queer secondary characters in the film, one of which is Kazuko’s brother Hiroshi who idolizes Joji and is working to become a boxer. He is implied to be gay through a thinly veiled subtext; we see this in his interactions with male characters through occasionally suggestive camera angles and in his infatuation with Joji. He also keeps pictures of shirtless boxers hidden in a book at home.

Tokiko is also implied to be queer. She sets out to threaten Kazuko to stay away from her man – and during the confrontation she kisses her, drawn in by her innocence and beauty. She later tells her boyfriend, “I can tell why you fell for her, I’ve taken to her too.”

Both film historian Eddie Muller and the British Film Institute have noted that the queer subtext running through some of Ozu’s films connects with the belief that Ozu himself was possibly gay; he was a lifelong bachelor who lived with his mother and when he was a teenager he allegedly wrote a love letter to a male student, which resulted in his expulsion.

If you’d like to watch DRAGNET GIRL, you can find the film streaming for free on YouTube - It’s also streaming on Criterion (USA/Canada) and Max (USA).