Bonchi ("The Son") is a 1960 film from Japan directed by Kon Ichikawa.
Kikuji is the scion of the Kawachi family, wealthy Osaka merchants who make tabi, a Japanese two-toed sock. The family is ruled with an iron fist by his grandmother and mother. In fact, the whole family is deeply matriarchal, with Kikuji's father Kihei being little more than an employee. Kikuji himself is basically a failson interested in little more than chasing women, but he's all that Mom and Grandma have, so they pester him to get married.
Eventually he does, marrying a perfectly lovely young woman named Hiroko. But Mom and Grandma take a dislike to her, and when she bears a son rather than the daughter they were hoping for, they force Kikuji to get a divorce. Kikuji, who is basically too weak-willed to fight back, instead adopts a sort of passive resistance, cycling through a series of mistresses. Eventually, however, even the mistresses prove to be something of a hassle.
Ayako Wakao plays Ponta, a geisha who becomes Kikuji's first mistress. Machiko Kyo appears as Ofuku, a mistress Kikuji picks up farther down the road.
Tropes:
- Age Cut: 1960 Kikuji says "I'm done with women." The film cuts back to Kikuji as a young man 30-odd years ago, having his skin powdered by Otogi, the maid.
- As You Know: A fair bit of this as exposition in the opening scene, like when Kikuji's friend observes that "It's been 49 days since your wife passed away." Later Grandma says to Mom, while nagging her about Kikuji's rudeness, that "I don't remember raising you, my only daughter, like that."
- The Casanova: His mother and grandmother harass Kikuji for tomcatting around. Later he admits that he is a "womanizer", and he certainly has no trouble attracting hot women, although they turn out to be more trouble than they're worth.
- Comforting the Widow: An unusual gender flip on this trope. Kikuji's bitchy, domineering mother and grandma refuse to let him attend Ikuko's funeral, because she was a concubine and that isn't allowed. Cut to Kikuji, weeping with grief in Ofuku's second-floor apartment, which offers a view of the funeral possession. (Apparently, of all his women, Ikuko was the one he really loved.) Ofuku sees Kikuji's tears and says "Let me comfort you." Sex follows. Kikuji's grandmother set this all up in hopes of matching Kikuji up with Ofuku.
- Death of a Child: The film is vague, but it seems that Kikuji's third son, the one by Ikuko, is killed in the 1945 bombing raid that also destroys the tabi factory.
- Framing Device: Kikuji, now an old man in 1960 Japan, tells a friend of his about his life and his complicated relationships with women.
- Furo Scene: Kikuji sends his three mistresses, Ponta, Ofuku, and Hisako, to a remote monastery to protect them from American bombs. Not long after the war is over he comes to the monastery to retrieve them and is surprised to see that they are all taking a bath together. It's pretty sexy, as they're all naked and splashing about and touching in a very sapphic way, but as they chatter about what they want to do with their lives he suddenly realizes that he doesn't want to have anything to do with any of them anymore. He turns around and leaves unseen, and cuts off contact with all three for good.
- Geisha: Kikuji likes to frequent them, at least in part it seems to get away from the hectoring women in his own family. He takes one, Ponta, as a mistress, and she gives birth to his second son, Taro. Later he does this again with another geisha, Ikuko.
- The Ghost: Kikuji's second wife, whom he married at some point after the war. All we learn of her is that "she was a hard worker, but she died young." It's the 49-day memorial service to her that starts Kikuji reminiscing about all the women in his life.
- Gilligan Cut: Kikuji insists to an underling that his idea for rainbow-colored tabi will be a hit, and says "I know a thing or two about business!" Cut to Kikuji at the racetrack with Hisako, wasting money on a horse. (And he soon mentions that the rainbow tabi were a bust.)
- Killed Offscreen: Kikuji is at home when a servant rushes in to tell him that Ikuko, his latest mistress, has died. The film does not say what of, although she may have died in childbirth.
- Lady Drunk: When the whole gang shows up at the family's warehouse, which is the only intact building in the neighborhood, Ofuku is drunk. She proceeds to flop down on a mat and sleep, as Ponta and Hisako look on in astonishment.
- Mood Whiplash: Most of Osaka is destroyed in an American bombing raid that, it is implied, killed Kikuchi's third son. He makes it to the Kawachi warehouse which is the only building in the area that survives—and the scene shifts to comedy as all three of his surviving mistresses separately show up, followed by his mother and grandmother, as Kikuchi gets more and more embarrassed.
- My Beloved Smother: Kikuji's mother and grandmother. They order him to marry. They order him to divorce. When Ikuko dies, they refuse to let him go to the funeral, because the "family rule" is that men don't attend the funerals of mistresses.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Grandma and Mom to Hiroko. Mom reduces her to tears by harassing her about not cutting up radishes correctly. Soon after, Hiroko catches Mom and Grandma looking in her toilet, trying to find out if her menstrual cycle has started. When Hiroko is finally forced out of the marriage by her in-laws, she seems relieved.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The fate of Kikuji's first wife Hiroko is never mentioned, even as their son Sajiro pops up at his father's house later, and not in the Framing Device where a grown Sajiro appears with his half-brother Taro, and not even when Taro says that his mother, Ponta, died from a cerebral hemorrhage.
