Hisako Hara obituary and filmography

[Michael E Kerpan Jr]

I note the brief obituaries for Hisako Hara, supposedly Japan's oldest active 
actress (96 at the time of her death).  I recognize her as the remarkable 
cherry-blossom old lady from Kore'eda's "Wandafaru raifu". I also note that 
she was in Imamura's "Kuroi ame".

I looked her up on IMDB and find two (clearly overlapping) Hisako Hara's 
listed.  Although Hara began her career in the 30s, the HH credited with 
"Wandafaru raifu" and "Kuroi ame" in IMDB has no credits prior to 1960, while 
the other HH's credits end at just about the same time.  Looking Hisako Hara 
up on JMDB only deepened the confusion -- as some of the earlier roles 
credited to the "other" HH are allocated to her in the JMDB, while others are 
not mentioned.

If JMDB is correct, Hara-san appeared in "Humanity and Paper Balloons", a 
war-time Naruse film (This Happy Life), Imai's "Himeyuri no to", Ichikawa's 
"Akuma no temari-uta" , suzuki's "Hachijikan no kyofu", Itami's "Shizukana 
seikatsu" and Shindo's "Sanmon yakusha" -- among other things.

Left orphaned, not listed in JMDB -- but mentioned on the list of the other HH 
are things like Naruse's very nice "Aki tachinu" (which I would like to think 
the late Hara-san was involved with).