Urashima Tarou (supposed title)

Synopsis

Urashima Tarou is rooted in a beloved Japanese legend, centering on a kindhearted fisherman who defends a sea turtle from a group of tormentors on the shore and is then escorted to a wondrous castle hidden beneath the ocean waves. Due to the nature of the story and the era in which it came to light, the work is considered to have been helmed by Kitayama on the grounds of Nippon Katsudou Shashin (Nikkatsu) around 1918. But later on, a collection of frames from Urashima Tarou that were released by Nikkatsu in 1918 appeared inside a magazine, leading experts to realize that none of those moments show up in the film in question, guiding current opinion to classify it as a separate, and different production from the Kitayama title.

Background

The film was made available online as part of the National Project for the Sustainability of Born-Digital Cinema, supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan in the fiscal 2016.