Story of a Prostitute [Criterion Collection]

Seijun Suzuki directed this hard-hitting account of a woman who volunteers to serve as a "comfort woman" (prostitute to the Japanese army) at the Manchurian front in 1937. Harumi (Yukimo Nogawa) is desperate to get out of Japan to escape the memory of a doomed romance. She offers to serve the Army in Manchuria, where the sadistic Lieutenant Narita (Isao Tamagawa) uses her violently and wants her as his private servant. However, Harumi has become infatuated with Mikami (Tamio Kawachi), Narita's subordinate, and they embark on an affair that would mean certain punishment for both of them if it were ever to be discovered. Diary Of A Prostitute was based on a novel by Taijiro Tamura, which was previously filmed (in bowdlerized form) in 1950 as Escape At Dawn.