A few Mizoguchi films:

Sisters of the Gion (1936), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. The final words of the film, spoken by one of the two geisha sisters, Omocha, are: "Why do there even have to be such things as geisha?" The film follows two sisters who work as geishas in the "pleasure district" of Kyoto, one traditional in thought and action and the other (the younger sister) rebellious and cynical. Neither finds the peaceful or prosperous life they might wish for. I will not outline the plot except to say that the older sister finds herself left behind by the man who had her loyalty, and the younger sister finds herself tossed from a speeding automobile by the young man she has jilted. Men, as in the earlier Osaka Elegy, are selfish and irascible. The film has beautiful tracking shots, moody lighting, and long narrow streets and alleys that suggest the confinement the characters experience. No one in this film has much room to move or to develop or to breathe. For a film of the mid 930s, it is forward looking. The only Hollywood film I can think of that is perhaps similar in its view of women is Lloyd Bacon's Marked Woman (1937).

Osaka Elegy (1936), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi often focuses on a woman in distress, and this film is his first exploration of the theme. A young telephone operator at a pharmaceutical firm, Ayato Murai, lives at home with parents who argue most of the time. Her father owes some 300 yen and he does not have the money to pay the debt. Ayato, meanwhile, finds herself the object of her boss's attentions; in short, he wants her to be his mistress. After talking with a young man and finding little help, except for his affection, she decides to meet her boss and take money from him so she can pay her father's debts. Events follow that farther entrap Ayato in a life she does not want until finally she and her young beau, Nishimura, find themselves questioned by the police. Nishimural says he has no interest in Ayako and the police let him leave. Then they offer a stern warning to Ayako and leave her under the authority of her father. She returns home where she receives, to put it mildly, an icy reception. Neither her father nor her brother (she has also taken money from a second man to pay for her brother's tuition) have any respect for her and think she should leave. She leaves home, wanders onto a bridge, meets the doctor of the family who, in effect, tells her she really has no recourse but a life of "delinquency." She walks slowly toward the camera and the film ends. Mizoguchi offers a lyrical yet sharp look at the difficulties of a woman's life. The film has elegant tracking shots and much murkiness and shadow.

Women of the Night (1948), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Despite the title, much of this film is photographed during the day, a nice way of pointing out that for the women in the film, pretty much all time, night or day, is dark. This is a raw look at post-war Japan, and especially the women, or at least some of the women, who have lost everything in the war and now have to scrabble to put their lives back together, as often as not failing in the endeavour and ending in prostitution. Mizoguchi shoots his film on the streets of Osaka using inferior film stock that renders the look of the film close to the Neo-realist films coming from Italy at the same time. Once again we have two sisters, a predatory boss, and many uncaring people. The prospects for the women here are dim, to say the least, and the final scene shot amid the rubble of a bombed out church is harrowing. The shot of the stained glass window depicting Madonna and child only reinforces the sorry state of things for these women. In this scene a gang of prostitutes gather like feral felines and attack one of the sisters and her young friend. Fusako, the elder sister, is beaten, whipped, and nearly stoned after she tries to protect her young friend and after she asserts her intention of "going straight." Mizoguchi shoots the scene from above showing the women behaving like a pack of wild animals. The action is furious and deeply troubling. A hospital does offer a sort of sanctuary for prostitutes, some of whom carry STDs, but this hospital is as much prison as it is medical centre. Surrounding it is a high stone wall topped with barbed wire. From the opening scenes in which Fusako's tubercular child dies to the unsettling end in the churchyard, the film is unrelenting in its examination of ruined lives.

Street of Shame (1956), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. This is Mizoguchi's final film, and it is an ensemble piece, focusing on five prostitutes who work for a brothel named Dreamland in Tokyo's Red Light District. Each woman has her dream of somehow finding a better way of life, and each woman finds this dream elusive, if not downright impossible. Melodrama is the order of the day, but effective melodrama. One of the women speaks of "tackling" men in order to lure them into the brothel, and this pretty much sums things up nicely. The plot, such as it is, involves the anxiety raised by the Diet's consideration of a bill that would make prostitution illegal. We see enough to know each of the five women well and understand her plight. One wants to leave and live with her now grown son, another just wants to care for her ill husband and infant, another works her tricks to save enough money to find her way into another life (she becomes owner of a shop that supplies fabric to the brothel), another marries and finds married life just another trap, and yet another simply wants to have as many material things as she can have. Near the end, another prostitute arrives, a young virginal girl terrified of the life she has entered. Her arrival, along with the defeating of the anti-prostitution bill in parliament, suggests a continuation of the street of shame. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of this film is the musical score by Toshiro Mayuzumi. The sounds and clang and unusual notes provide a cacophonous accompaniment to lives lived on the edge.