Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute (1975)

Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute is a 1975 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. It is a documentary on one of the Japanese "karayuki-san," who were women who left their homes in Japan to work as prostitutes in Japanese-occupied territories during World War II. Many of these women were told that they were doing this to support their families because of the extreme poverty in wartime Japan. Imamura focuses on one particular woman who was sent to Malaysia and never returned to Japan. Joan Mellen, in The Waves at Genji's Door, called this film, "Perhaps the most brilliant and feeling of Imamura's fine documentaries."

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