page_title: Keiko Sonoi
section_title: Film role in Matsu
hierarchical_section_title: Keiko Sonoi / Biography / Film role in Matsu
caption_attribution_description: English: still photo from "Rickshaw Man" 1943 日本語: 1943年版『無法松の一生』スチル
context_page_description: Keiko Sonoi was a Japanese actress, who was a member of the all-female musical-performing Takarazuka Revue during the 1930s and the 1940s, best known for her role as an officer's widow in the wartime film Muhōmatsu no isshō, and for being part of the Sakura-tai or Cherry Blossom Unit of traveling shingeki play actors who died as a result of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.
  The fate of the Cherry Blossom Unit was later dramatized by playwright Hisashi Inoue, and also made into a feature film by director Kaneto Shindo.
  The actress appears to have had a long-held desire to perform shingeki plays, but that was not economically viable due to the need to her support her parents and siblings. As a Takarazienne, she had the manga comic artist Osamu Tezuka as a childhood fan who lived on her block, and Astro Boy may have been influenced by Sonoi's performance of Pinochio from April to May, 1942.
context_section_description: In 1943, Sonoi was cast opposite top leading actor Tsumasaburō Bandō in Muhōmatsu no isshō, where she played Mrs. Yoshioka, whom Muhōmatsu (or Matsu the Untamed, played by Bandō) becomes romantically but unrequitedly attached to. The film became a box office hit.
  The child actor billed as Akio Sawamura (actor Hiroyuki Nagato of later years) said he earnestly wished he could marry a woman like Sonoi.
  The director, Hiroshi Inagaki recalled that Takako Irie and Fukuko Sayo had been the first choices for the role but were not available, and the offer was made to Sonoi on Sayo's recommendation.
  Due to success of this film, Daiei offered Sonoi a studio contract, but she declined saying she preferred to continue studying with her theatrical company, Kuraku-za (cf. below). The director, Hiroshi Inagaki was eager to sign Sonoi onto his new projects at the time; in later years, the director reflected that Sonoi was "not so much a skilled performer as someone with a passion for performing. She had the basics of inhabiting the persona of her role, down pat".
caption: Sonoi in a still shot from Muhōmatsu no isshō (1943). With Tsumasaburo Bando as Matsu. The child was played by Hiroyuki Nagato.
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