Immortal Love

Immortal Love a.k.a. Bitter Spirit (Japanese: 永遠の人, romanized: Eien no Hito, lit. 'The eternal Person') is a 1961 Japanese drama film written and directed by Keisuke Kinoshita.^[3] It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.^[4] Masakazu Tamura made his official debut in the film.^[5]

Immortal Love
Theatrical release poster
Kanji	永遠の人
Directed by	Keisuke Kinoshita
Written by	Keisuke Kinoshita
Produced by	Keisuke Kinoshita Sennosuke Tsukimori
Starring	Hideko Takamine Keiji Sada Tatsuya Nakadai
Cinematography	Hiroshi Kusuda
Edited by	Yoshi Sugihara
Music by	Chūji Kinoshita
Production company	Shochiku
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date	September 16, 1961 (1961-09-16) [1]
Running time	107 minutes[1][2]
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Plot

Over a time span of 30 years, the film tells the story of Sadako, who is pressured into a marriage with Heibei, the crippled war veteran son of the local landlord, although she loves Takashi, a young man from the same village. Takashi later marries Tomoko, but neither he nor Sadako can forget their past mutual affection.

Cast

• Hideko Takamine as Sadako
• Keiji Sada as Takashi
• Tatsuya Nakadai as Heibei
• Nobuko Otowa as Tomoko, Takashi's wife
• Akira Ishihama as Yutaka, Takashi's son
• Yukiko Fuji as Naoko, Sadako's daughter
• Kiyoshi Nonomura as Rikizo, Takashi's brother
• Yoshi Katō as Sojiro, Sadako's father
• Yasushi Nagata as Heizaemon, Heibei's father
• Torahiko Hamada as Mr. Koshinuma
• Masakazu Tamura as Eiichi, Sadako's son
• Masaya Totsuka as Morito, Sadako's son
• Eijirō Tōno as Policeman