is a 1984

1984 in film

-Events:* The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name.* Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS, releases its first film....

 Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese comedy film directed by Yoji Yamada

Yoji Yamada

is a Japanese film director best known for his Otoko wa Tsurai yo series of films and his Samurai Trilogy ....

. It stars Kiyoshi Atsumi

Kiyoshi Atsumi

Kiyoshi Atsumi , born Yasuo Tadokoro , was a Japanese film actor....

 as Torajirō Kuruma (Tora-san), and Reiko Ōhara as his love interest or "Madonna". Tora-san's Forbidden Love is the thirty-fourth entry in the popular, long-running Otoko wa Tsurai yo

Otoko wa Tsurai yo

Otoko wa tsurai yo is a Japanese film series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi as "Tora-san" , a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. The series itself is often referred to as "Tora-san" by its fans...

series.

Synopsis

In the midst of Japan's rising economy of the mid-1980s, the itinerant Tora-san becomes drunk with a hard-working company section chief. After an hour commute, the two sleep off their night's revelry at the section chief's home in Ibaraki Prefecture. When the section chief disappears due to the pressure of his job, Tora-san helps his wife to find the man, while secretly hoping they do not, as he has fallen in love with her.

Cast

• Kiyoshi Atsumi
  Kiyoshi Atsumi
  Kiyoshi Atsumi , born Yasuo Tadokoro , was a Japanese film actor....
  
   as Torajirō
• Chieko Baishō
  Chieko Baisho
  is a Japanese actress and singer.In Japan, she is well known for her performance as Sakura in the Otoko wa Tsurai yo series . In addition, she has acted in most films directed by Yōji Yamada since the 1960s...
  
   as Sakura
• Reiko Ōhara as Fujiko Tominaga
• Masakane Yonekura as Kenkichi Tominaga
• Jun Miho as Akemi
• Shimojo Masami as Kuruma Tatsuzō
• Chieko Misaki as Tsune Kuruma (Torajiro's aunt)
• Gin Maeda as Hiroshi Suwa
• Hidetaka Yoshioka
  Hidetaka Yoshioka
  ', is a Japanese actor known for his performance in several movies as a child and lately the award-winning TV drama Dr. Koto Shinryojo. He notably played the part of Tora-san's little nephew in the "Otoko wa Tsurai yo" film series, and he appeared in Akira Kurosawa's "Rhapsody in August" and...
  
   as Mitsuo Suwa
• Hisao Dazai as Boss (Umetarō Katsura)
• Gajirō Satō as Genkō

Critical appraisal

Director Yoji Yamada

Yoji Yamada

is a Japanese film director best known for his Otoko wa Tsurai yo series of films and his Samurai Trilogy ....

 was nominated for the Golden Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival

Moscow International Film Festival

Moscow International Film Festival , is the film festival first held in Moscow in 1959. From its inception to 1995 it was held every second year in July, alternating with the Karlovy Vary festival. The festival has been held annually since 1995....

 for Tora-san's Forbidden Love. At the Japan Academy Prize long-time Otoko wa Tsurai yo

Otoko wa Tsurai yo

Otoko wa tsurai yo is a Japanese film series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi as "Tora-san" , a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. The series itself is often referred to as "Tora-san" by its fans...

composer, Naozumi Yamamoto was nominated for Best Music Score for his work in this film. Stuart Galbraith IV

Stuart Galbraith IV

Stuart Galbraith IV is an American cinema historian, film critic, and DVD special features producer, essayist, and audio commentator.-Early life and education:...

 rates the film no better than average for the series, but still recommends it highly due to the series' high standards. He notes that it benefits from an opening dream-sequence satire of kaiju eiga

Kaiju

is a Japanese word that means "strange beast," but often translated in English as "monster". Specifically, it is used to refer to a genre of tokusatsu entertainment....

, or monster films, with footage from Shochiku

Shochiku

is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...

's entry in this genre, The X from Outer Space

The X from Outer Space

is a 1967 Kaiju film released by the studio Shochiku. It is the first kaiju film released by Shochiku who would later go on to release a number of Kaiju films in the future....

, employed. This was meant to reference Godzilla

Godzilla

is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...

's return from retirement in The Return of Godzilla

The Return of Godzilla

The Return of Godzilla The Return of Godzilla The Return of Godzilla (released as in Japan and as Godzilla 1985 in North America, is a 1984 Science Fiction Kaiju film. The sixteenth film in Toho's Godzilla series, it was produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka and directed by Koji Hashimoto with special...

(1984), which had been released just before the Tora-san film. The German-language site molodezhnaja gives Tora-san's Forbidden Love three and a half out of five stars.

Availability

Tora-san's Forbidden Love was released theatrically on December 28, 1984. In Japan, the film has been released on videotape in 1987 and 1996, and in DVD format in 2002 and 2008.

External links

• Tora-san's Forbidden Love at www.tora-san.jp (Official site)