Yoshiwara is a 1937 French historical drama film directed by Max Ophüls and starring Pierre Richard-Willm, Sessue Hayakawa and Michiko Tanaka.

[1] It was shot at the Joinville Studios of Pathé in Paris and on location at the Musée Albert-Kahn in Billancourt and in Rochefort-en-Yvelines and Villefranche-sur-Mer.

The film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century.

It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer and a rickshaw man.

[3] Yoshiwara proved controversial in Japan where the government objected to the depiction of Japanese brothels and banned it.