

A lost masterpiece: Les Misérables reimagined in samurai Japan.
The first part of a fascinating melodrama based on Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji Revolution. The film has not survived.
Direction
Uchida's bold East-West fusion, now a ghost.
Production
Meiji-era sets we'll never see.

Director
Tomu Uchida
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tomu Uchida made this between his silent masterpieces and his later samurai epics—this missing link haunts his filmography.
1931 Japan loved adapting Western lit; this was part of a mini-trend of Hugo adaptations that quietly shaped early Japanese cinema's global appetite.
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