Typhon sur Nagasaki (1957)

Typhon sur Nagasaki is a French romantic film drama first released in 1957, directed by Yves Ciampi.  The film stars Danielle Darrieux, Jean Marais, Keiko Kishi, Sô Yamamura and Hitomi Nozoe.  It has also been released under the title: Typhoon Over Nagasaki.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


A French engineer, Pierre Marsac, accepts a posting with an oil company in the Japanese city Nagasaki, where he falls in love with a young local girl, Noriko.  Pierre is all set on marrying Noriko when an old flame, Françoise, suddenly turns up out of the blue.  Françoise is determined to win back her former lover and seems to succeed, until a violent typhoon hits the area...

Although competently directed, with a keen appreciation of Japanese culture and society, Typhon sur Nagasaki is a somewhat passionless affair, barely sustained by the personalities of its two lead actors.  Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux would appear to be the ideal choice to star in a romantic drama but there is very little chemistry between them and consequently the film feels largely flat and unconvincing.   Although there are a few references to the fate suffered by Nagasaki during World War II, more could have been made of this, perhaps to remind us of the transient nature of love whilst emphasising the divisions between East and West.   The film’s artistic strengths lie elsewhere, primarily in Henri Alekan’s sumptuous location photography, although the special effects in the film’s climactic last fifteen minutes are also impressive.  Overall, however, the film is a let down, feeling more like a shallow imitation of the 1950s Hollywood romantic melodrama than a serious European film of the same époque.

© James Travers 2004

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