Japan Cuts XIX Review: In TOKYO TAXI, A Ride To Remember
The film enjoyed its East Coast Premiere for the 19th edition of Japan Cuts
Yoji Yamada
JAPAN CUTS Review: TORA SAN, WISH YOU WERE HERE – A final goodbye to a 50-year legacy.
In 1995, this long running series came to an end with the abrupt death of its star Kiyoshi Atsumi. His death meant the death of Tora San and the 48th film of the series, “Tora San, to the rescue” was the unexpected final of a series that was left without a proper farewell. 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the release of the first movie and Yoji Yamada, the creator of this wonderful series, didn’t want to miss the chance of returning to Shibamata to celebrate this 50 years journey delivering a new film that could be a perfect farewell to the fans of the franchise. “Wish You Were Here” follows the story twenty-four years after the last film, centering the plot around Tora´s nephew Mitsuo (Hidetaka Yoshioka), who´s now a middle aged succesful novelist, single father of a teenage girl, who has lost his wife six years ago. interspersing […]
Review: TORA SAN, MY UNCLE – Mitsuo’s desperate quest for love
When the series was entering into its final stage, Mitsuo, Tora´s nephew (Hidetaka Yoshioka) was becoming Tora´s sidekick on his trips around japan, having his own love affairs, with more luck than his uncle, and in some ocassions relegating his uncle to a supporting role, becoming himself the centre of the plots and his love stories the main plot of the story. This 42th entry of the series was really fresh and original, and it was completely centered in Mitsuo´s romance with his most beloved madonna, Izumi (Kumiko Goto), in a story of desperate romances of youth, in which Mitsuo after failing his college entrance exam, escapes from home riding his motorbike with the intention of going to Kyushu, where Izumi, his high school crush, has moved after the divorce of her parents, but on his troublesome trip, Mitsuo coincidentally finds his uncle, Tora, who will be his sidekick for […]
JAPAN CUTS Review: TORA-SAN MEETS THE SONGSTRESS AGAIN – Tora’s most beloved Madonna second chance
This fifteenth entry of the series is one of the most beloved by fans and also one of the finest entries. This chapter was the second appearance of Lily (Ruriko Asaoka) the most recurring Madonna in the series whose first appearance was in the eleventh entry “Tora san´s Forget me Not” and would appear in the series four times more, including this one and last year 50th anniversary´s film, “Tora san, Wish you were here”, having five total appearances throughout the series. This installment begins as a road movie with Tora travelling through Hokkaido in company of a discontented salary man (Eiji Funakoshi) who searchs for a lost love from the past. In their journey, Tora runs into Lily and the spark that lighted their fire in the eleventh film, burns again giving them a second chance.Lily joins them in their trip, however, Lily and Tora have a disagreement and […]
JAPAN CUTS Review: TORA SAN, OUR LOVABLE TRAMP – The beginning of the journey for the greatest hero of unrequited love
The character of Tora-san has surpased all the boundaries of cinema and has become an icon in Japanese popular culture, being one of their most beloved characters, starring a long series of 48 films between 1969 until 1995, in which is probably the longest movie series starred by a same actor in movie history. From 1969 to 1989, two films were released each year, one in summer and one for New Year Release. From 1990 to 1995, only one film was released by year, and the series came to an end with the death of its star, Kiyoshi Atsumi from lung cancer at the age of 68. Atsumi was so identified with the character, that fans moaned his death as the death of the beloved tramp, and although that there were plans to follow the series, the passing of Tora san himself, made that the idea lost all sense. For […]
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