Directed by Kinuyo Tanaka • 1953 • Japan
Starring Masayuki Mori, Juzo Dosan, Yoshiko Kuga

Released a year after the American occupation of Japan ended, Kinuyo Tanaka’s directorial debut explores the professional and personal conflicts of Reikichi (Masayuki Mori), a repatriated veteran who searches for his lost love (Yoshiko Kuga) while translating romantic letters from Japanese women to American GIs. As adapted from a novel by Fumio Niwa, LOVE LETTER depicts with incisive complexity the fraught adaptation of Japanese soldiers to a changed society as well as the moral condemnation of Japanese women who became involved with the enemy.