Another entertaining entry in director and co-writer Yoji Yamada's beloved "Tora-san" film series, Tora-san's Island Encounter (1985) doesn't particularly break any new ground but it's a pleasant visit with familiar characters nonetheless. The screenplay references and somewhat reworks Sakae Tsuboi's famous novel Twenty-Four Eyes, later made into an equally popular and acclaimed movie by Keisuke Kinoshita in 1954, one that beat out Seven Samurai on Kinema Jumpo's "Best Ten" list that year and did nearly as well at the box office.

Released in Japan as Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Shibamata yori ai wo komete, or "It's Tough Being a Man - Best Wishes from Shibamata," this 36th entry opens in Shibamata, the old-fashioned Tokyo neighborhood where Tora-san's (Kiyoshi Atsumi) family runs a traditional sweets shop. At the small printing factory next door, Umetaro (Hisao Dazai), b...Read the entire review

Though the twice yearly visits with itinerant peddler Torajiro "Tora-san" Kuruma (Kiyoshi Atsumi) and his family in Tokyo's timeless Shibamata area is as welcome as it ever was, to paraphrase writer Bill Warren, Tora-san's The Go Between (1985) not only isn't exploring anything like virgin territory -- it's territory that's been ploughed and covered over with condominiums.

On one of the Goto Islands in Nagasaki, Tora-san and fellow peddler Ponshu (Keiroku Seki) come to the rescue of a frail old lady, Hama Egami (Kotoe Hatsui), who falls and injures herself. Tora-san and Ponshu gingerly help her to her home and she invites the men in to thank them, offering them a snack of sake and octopus. The ...Read the entire review

An above-average entry in the long-running "Tora-san" film series, Tora-san's Marriage Counselor (Otoko wa tsuraiyo -- Yogiri ni musebu torajiro, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Night Fog Weeping Torajiro," 1984) engagingly departs from the usual formula, and it's somewhat darker from most entries despite an unusual, almost slapstick finale that likewise deviates from most Tora-san films.

Mean...Read the entire review

Ranking squarely in the middle of its series high average, Tora-san's Promise (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Torajiro kamifusen, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Torajiro's Paper Balloon," 1981) is business as usual for the itinerant peddler Torajiro Kuruma (Kiysohi Atsumi) and his much put-upon family. Those who'd make the "see one and you've seen 'em all" argument miss the point entirely; for Japanese audiences, part of the fun of this long-running series is its comfort food-like predictability, and the subtle experimentation director and co-writer Yoji Yamada infuses every film with.

　

An excellent drama about the plight of everyday workers in a Japan hard-hit by the recession, The New Voyage (Gakko III, 1998) is the third of director Yoji Yamada's four "Gakko" ("School") films to date. Each movie honestly but optimistically dramatizes the struggles of students and teachers trying to better themselves in unconventional educational programs. In A Class to Remember (Gakko, 1993) semi-literate, working-class adults, troubled youths, and discriminated foreigners worked with devoted teacher Toshiyuki Nishida to earn their junior high school diploma, while The Learning Circle (Gakko II, 1996) was set in a school for mentally-retarded teenagers. The New Voyage focuses in on two displaced workers studying at a free-of-charge vocational school. Unlike most of Panorama's Japanese mov...Read the entire review

An excellent entry in the long running Tora-san film series, Tora-san Goes Religious (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Kuchibue wo fuku Torajiro, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Torajiro Blows the Whistle," 1983) delicately juggles several compelling storylines at once and star Kiyoshi Atsumi gives one of his very best performances in the title role. The film, a New Year's release, was a big hit, placing fifth on the list of top domestic films of 1984 though curiously it won no awards.

　

　　

Though its screenplay is lightweight compared to the best films in its series, Tora-san's Song of Love (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Tabi to onna to Torajiro or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Traveling, a Woman, and Torajiro," 1983) is an enjoyable, breezy entry in the long-running series, this being the 31st of 48 films produced between 1969 and 1995. It's also a clever variation of one of the most popular foreign films ever exhibited in Japan, William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953).

　

Torajiro "Tora-san" Kuruma (Kiyoshi Atsumi), the wandering itinerant peddler, returns home to his family's traditional sweets shop in the old-fashioned Shibamata neighborhood of Tokyo just as brother-in-law Hiroshi (Gin Maeda) learns that he won't be able to attend his son's sch...Read the entire review

Those who think of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu only in terms of his favorite subject matter and distinctive style - films about eldest daughters of aging families reluctantly persuaded to marry and leave behind the parents they love, told in static, sitting-position shots filmed a few feet off the ground and cut together in straight cuts with the actors often looking directly into the camera - will be quite surprised by Dragnet Girl (Hijosen no onna, 1933) a stylish silent crime thriller with much to recommend it.

The picture is Ozu by way of Fritz Lang, closer to that director's German Expressionist crime films than, say, the Warner Bros. gangster movies being made in America at the time. Joji Oka and the great actress Kinuyo Tanaka, the latter a baby-faced 22 when the film was in production, star as Joji and Tokiko, an ex-prizefighter and his dame. She's a tough-talking moll who d...Read the entire review

While it's nice to see cult Japanese genre directors like Kinji Fukasaku and Seijun Suzuki so well represented on DVD, other arguably much more important postwar filmmakers have, up to now, been criminally neglected by western world DVD labels. Directors as monumental as Mikio Naruse, Shiro Toyoda, and Tadashi Imai, to name but three have been sorely neglected. Another writer-director regarded as one of Japan's best was Keisuke Kinoshita, whose only film available on DVD in the west so far is Twenty-Four Eyes (1954), and that's only in the U.K. As it happened, Kinoshita died in 1998 shortly after the death of colleague Akira Kurosawa and soon thereafter books and film magazines were published in Japan jointly paying tribute to these cinematic giants. That Kinoshita was given almost equal weight in these publications speaks volumes of how highly he was regarded in his homeland.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/25859 Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:12:37 UTC Highly Recommended

Finally! After several years of inferior masters, Hong Kong's Panorama label appears to at last coaxed Japanese licensor Shochiku to provide them with good masters. Tora-san, the Expert (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Hana mo arashi mo Torajiro, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Flower and Storm Torajiro, 1982) is the first "Tora-san" movie released anywhere in the world with both English subtitles and a 16:9 enhanced transfer. And what a glorious transfer it is! As for the film, the 30th installment in the long-running (48 features made during 1969-1995), it's also well above average thanks to an especially good performance by Yuko Tanaka (Hibi, The Exam), one of the best of the entire series.

Itinerant peddler Torajiro "Tora-san" Kuruma (Kiyoshi Atsu...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21974 Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:38:21 UTC Highly Recommended

One of the great undiscovered films of Japanese cinema, Yoji Yamada's A Distant Cry from Spring (1980) is near or at the top of an incredible body of work that includes Twilight Samurai (2002), Home from the Sea (1972) and, of course, the 48-film "Tora-san" series. The film is very nearly a prequel to another of Yamada's best films, The Yellow Handkerchief (1977) and similar in a lot of ways to George Stevens' Shane (1953), albeit set in present-day Hokkaido and minus the Van Heflin and Jack Palance characters. The film is so wonderful that it overcomes the needlessly poor video master licensor Shochiku provided Hong Kong distributor Panorama.

Tamiko Kazami (Chieko Baisho, Sakura in the "Tora-san" movies) is a young widow and mother living in rural Hokkaido, where she runs a small dairy farm with help from her ten-year-old son, Takeshi (Hidetaka Yoshioka). One sto...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21524 Sat, 06 May 2006 13:14:07 UTC Recommended

After the success of his acclaimed The Yellow Handkerchief (Shiawase no kiiroi hankachi, 1977), director Yoji Yamada revisited certain elements of that film in subsequent Tora-san movies. Tora-san's Stage-Struck (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Torajiro wagamichi wo yuku, 1978) partly was designed as a showcase for hot young talent Tetsuya Takeda, with actor playing a similar character thrust into Tora-san's universe. For Tora-san the Matchmaker (Otoko wa tsurai yo: Tonderu torajiro, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Hip Torajiro," 1979), the 23rd film in the long-running series, Yamada builds much of the story around Yellow Handkerchief's ingenue, the hugely popular Kaori Momoi, with greater success. Though at times the film plays more like a vehicle for Momoi than series star Kiyoshi Atsumi, there are many fine and entertaining scenes throughout.

The theme this time is love and marriage...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19347 Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:49:00 UTC Recommended

On the heels of the excellent Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset (1976), Tora-san's Heart of Gold (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Torajiro Junjoshishu, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Torajiro's Pure Book of Poetry," 1976)** is something of a disappointment. It's much more sentimental than its predecessor and its story structure is a bit off, with a key scene botched because of one placed earlier in the narrative. Nevertheless, the film still placed sixth on the top-grossing domestic releases in Japan for 1977, and for western viewers it offers the rare chance to see Machiko Kyo, the star of Rashomon, Ugetsu, and Street of Shame, as Tora-san's love interest. Though she continued acting onstage and in Japanese television dramas, this was her penultimate film.

The film opens with Tora-san (Kiyoshi Atsumi) arriving home in S...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19240 Mon, 12 Dec 2005 13:52:00 UTC Highly Recommended

Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset (Otoko wa tsuraiyo - Torajiro yuuyake koyake, or "It's Tough to Be a Man - Torajiro's Sunset Glow," 1976) is the 17th of 48 Tora-san movies made between 1969 and 1995. It's also one of the best, and was a popular and critical success in Japan. It was the third highest-grossing domestic film in Japan that year, placed second on Kinema Jumpo magazine's "Best Ten" list, just behind Kazuhiko Hasegawa's Youth Killer (Seishun no satsujin sha), and co-star Kiwako Taichi won their award for Best Supporting Actress.

After a typically funny pre-credits dream sequence, this one a hilarious spoof of Jaws, Torajiro "Tora-san" Kuruma (Kiyoshi Atsumi), itinerant peddler and black sheep of his family, returns home to the sweets shop in Shibatama with Ikenouchi (Jukichi Uno), an apparently penniless (yenless?) old drunk, to whom Tora-san had taken pity when ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/18704 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:53:50 UTC Recommended

The 14th of a whopping 48 Tora-san movies, Tora-san's Lullaby (Otoko wa tsurai yo: Torajiro komoriuta, or "It's Tough to Be a Man: Torajiro the Babysitter," 1974) is a typically fine entry with not much to distinguish it from the rest of the series, though it's still quite good. By this time, whether Japanese audiences had realized it or not, part of the value of these movies was watching them in consideration of past entries and with the changing times, and in so doing they function in a way almost unique to motion pictures.

This time itinerant peddler Torajiro Kuruma, Tora-san (Kiyoshi Atsumi), is traveling around southern Japan, in Kyushu where at a small port town in Saga he meets the distressed young father of an infant boy. Tora-san takes pity on the man and invites him to his room for a drink. The next morning, however, the man is gone leaving the baby in Tora-san's dubious care.

He...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/18502 Tue, 01 Nov 2005 04:47:38 UTC Highly Recommended

Note: This is an import title in NTSC format from Hong Kong. Though available online and at many specialty shops throughout America, a region-free or Region 3/NTSC player is required when viewing this title.

The 13th of 48 Tora-san movies, Tora-san's Lovesick (Otoko wa tsurai yo: Torajiro koiyatsure, or "It's Tough to Be a Man: Torajiro Lovesick," 1974) is also directly linked to the ninth Tora-san film, Tora-san's Dear Old Home (1972). Like most Japanese film series, be it Tora-san or Zatoichi or Godzilla, while it's true in one sense that once you've seen one you've seen them all, it's also true that the fun of such films are the subtle variations of the same basic story and characters. In this case, while Tora-san falls in love yet again (twice!), the film's main story involves an especially well-writte...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/11267 Wed, 23 Jun 2004 17:44:16 UTC Highly Recommended

Note: This is an import title in NTSC format from Hong Kong. Though available online and at many specialty shops throughout America, a region-free or Region 3/NTSC player is required when viewing this title.

A beguiling drama from the writer-director of 2002's Twilight Samurai, Yoji Yamada's The Village (Harakara, 1975) is a very satisfying slice of life about rural life and the theater.

The film is set in Matsuo, a remote farming village in Iwate Prefecture in northern Honshu. On a snowy March evening, a youths' association, made up of local twenty-somethings, is visited by Hideko (Chieko Baisho), representative of a non-profit, Tokyo-based theatrical troupe. Hideko proposes that the group sponsor a performance of their touring musical, "Native Village." Staging the single performance, as well as paying for the troupe's transportation and boarding expenses, isn't cheap. Hidek...Read the entire review

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