Otoko wa tsurai yo

A breezy and fun watch- at times very funny ("BUTTER") and when it wanted to be a little more sentimental or even emotional, that stuff worked too.

I didn't like the last half-hour as much as the first hour or so, and that left the film as a whole feeling a little disjointed. However, considering there are 40-something more movies to go in this series, a lack of a great conclusion is certainly forgivable.

I've had a great deal of enjoyment from completing other long-running Japanese film series' like Godzilla and Zatoichi, so I look forward to tackling this one, with the aim to finish them all by the end of 2021.

Otoko wa Tsuraiyo, the first film of the many serires, is a masterpiece of a Japanese cinematic arts at its peak. Despite the simple and mundane story, the character development and the excellent performance of the entire casts portrays the dynamic relations of the characters. The cinematography, specially the camera techniques portrays the characters emotional status and transformation moreover it allows the audience to immerse into the world of Tora-san and the relations he has with other characters. The film, and the following Tora-san series serves as a canon, a model for future cinematic arts in Japan.

This first film in what is purported to be the longest run series in film history tells the tale of Tora-San, an itinerant peddler who is thrown out of his father's house twenty years before but reconnects with his aunt, uncle and sister Sakura (the very pretty and sweet Chieko Baisho). Tora wreaks some havoc in their lives, like getting drunk and silly at a marriage meeting and ruining Sakura's chance to marry someone, as well as just being a real pain to those around him. There is a sentimental side to him also, and the best way to describe him is that he grows on you. This film features smallish roles by two of the greatest actors in film history, Chishu Ryu as a priest and Takashi Shimura, as Sakura's prospective father in law. They light up the screen when they're in the film. Kind of a film about a bygone era in Japan, as itinerant peddlers are all but gone, this film reminds me somewhat of the two "Always Sunset On Third Street" films, as they are also about a bygone era. Crazy, funny & sentimental, this film delivers. I have not seen any of the rest (so far, anyway) of the films in this series, but I am intrigued. Atsumi Kiyoshi, who plays Tora, is good in this. I recommend it, its a very good film.

Besides being an itinerant salesman, Tora san also shows adeptness as a Palm-Reader. At those times he is shown promoting his Palmistry by prominently displaying a huge banner which depicts a diagram of the human palm with its designated lines.

Tora san's Palmistry is reflective of the acceptance with which Palm-reading is viewed by Japan and the Orient in general. Strolling down the Ginza nowadays, one can see an occasional Palm-Reader who has set up a table along the pedestrian walkways. Even more so in China where even their temples have a resident soothsayer. Not surprising when you consider that Palm-Reading is said to have originated in China.

First "Tora-san" feature sets up format for the rest of the series, with Tora-san returning home to Shibamata after many years estranged from his family. Atsumi is hilarious, Baisho luminous, and Yamada's screenplay and direction is sensitive yet uncomprimising. As Kevin Thomas of the "LA Times" told me for an article I wrote on the series, these pictures are "sentimental, but in the good sense of the word." The real surprise here is the appearance of Takashi Shimura ("Seven Samurai," "Ikiru") as Hiroshi Suwa's estranged father. His scenes and how they relate to Tora-san's own life, is emotionally powerful stuff sprinkled with some very funny moments as well. It's really a shame that NONE of these movies are presently available on home video in the United States.