Sakuran

Sakuran (さくらん, 2006) is a Japanese historical drama to watch online on iFILM, the feature debut of photographer-turned-director Mika Ninagawa. From the opening frame it is clear this is a film made by someone consumed by color. Anna Tsuchiya, singer and actress, plays the lead.

A young girl is sold into the pleasure quarters of Yoshiwara in Edo. A decade later she has become Higurashi the oiran — the highest-ranked courtesan in the district, feared by rivals and desired by everyone else. She climbed by breaking rules that others absorb without question. A wealthy samurai now wants to buy her contract and take her as his wife. That would be the end of the story. Except it is not.

Based on the manga by Moyoco Anno, the film looks like a sequence of paintings that came alive: scarlet kimonos, lantern gold, cherry blossoms in every season. What it is underneath all that color is a portrait of a woman who survived a system built to consume her and came out on her own terms. Watch Sakuran (2006) online on iFILM.