Double Suicide

Double Suicide (心中天網島, Shinjū: Ten no Amijima) is a 1969 film directed by Masahiro Shinoda. It is based on the 1721 play The Love Suicides at Amijima by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. This play is often performed with puppets. In the film, the story is performed with live actors but makes use of Japanese theatrical traditions such as the kuroko (stagehands dressed entirely in black) who invisibly interact with the actors, and the set is non-realist. The kuroko prepare for a modern-day presentation of a puppet play while a voice-over, presumably the director, calls on the telephone to find a location for the penultimate scene of the lovers' suicide. Soon, human actors substitute for the puppets, and the action proceeds in a naturalistic fashion, until from time to time the kuroko intervene to accomplish scene shifts or heighten the dramatic intensity of the two lovers' resolve to be united in death.

Double Suicide
Directed by	Masahiro Shinoda
Produced by	Masahiro Shinoda Masayuki Nakajima
Written by	Taeko Tomioka Toru Takemitsu
Starring	Kichiemon Nakamura Shima Iwashita Hosei Komatsu Yusuke Takita Kamatari Fujiwara
Music by	Tōru Takemitsu
Cinematography	Toichiro Narushima
Color process	Black and White
Distributed by	Toho Company
Release date	May 24, 1969 (Japan) February 11, 1970 (U.S.)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

The stylized sets and the period costumes and props simultaneously convey a classical theatricality and contemporaneous modernity. Jihei's fatal love interest, Koharu the prostitute, and his neglected wife, Osan, are both played by actress Shima Iwashita.

This film was released on DVD in Japanese with English subtitles in Region 1 on 30 January 2001.