Japan Cuts 2010 Review: Yoji Yamada's "About Her Brother"

About Her Brother (Ototo). 2010. Directed by Yoji Yamada. Written by Yoji Yamada and Emiko Hiramatsu. Produced by Suketsugu Noda, Hiroshi Fukasawa, Kenichi Tamura, and Ichiro Yamamoto. Cinematography by Masashi Chikamori. Edited by Iwao Ishi. Music by Isao Tomita. Production design by Mitsuo Degawa. Sound by Kazumi Kishida.

Cast: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Tsurube Shofukutei, Yu Aoi, Ryo Kase, Yuriko Ishida, Takashi Sasano, Fumiyo Kohinata, Nenji Kobayashi, Haruko Kato.

Yoji Yamada’s About Her Brother is his first contemporary drama in a decade, following his samurai trilogy (The Twilight Samurai, The Hidden Blade, Love and Honor) and his previous film, the WWII reminiscence Kabei: Our Mother. However, despite its modern setting, his latest film has the same feel as Kon Ichikawa’s 1960 classic Ototo (Her Brother); Yamada uses the same basic story for his film, which he dedicates to Ichikawa. As in the earlier version, About Her Brother focuses on the relationship between Ginko (Sayuri Yoshinaga), a long-time widow and pharmacy owner who has never remarried, and her incorrigible younger brother Tetsuro (Tsurube Shofukutei), who causes much embarrassment with his casual approach to personal responsibility and his penchant for drinking and gambling. Ginko has put up with Tetsuro’s antics ever since they were children, but Tetsuro severely tests the limits of her patience when he drunkenly wrecks the wedding reception of Ginko’s daughter Koharu (Yu Aoi), and later on when she has to bail him out of a debt he owes to a woman he has been seeing. Ginko finally cuts ties with her brother, but their familial bond and her sense of emotional indebtedness to him makes it very difficult for her to remain separate from him.


Yoji Yamada is a consummate craftsman of cinema, and he gets everything right in About Her Brother, displaying the skill and comfort that comes from many years of making films, showing considerable care and attention to detail. Yamada has learned the tricks of his trade as thoroughly as the young carpenter (Ryo Kase) who befriends Koharu later in the film. This is essentially a tearjerker, but Yamada never allows the material to descend into cheap bathos, respecting the intelligence of both the audience and his actors, ensuring that every emotion elicited from the film is fully earned. Yamada, best known for his beloved, long-running film series featuring the traveling salesman Tora-san (who, charmingly, makes a brief appearance here), is as old-fashioned a filmmaker as they come, which is a major part of his charm. Even though About Her Brother is set in a modern age in which people use cell phones and such, its milieu is virtually unchanged from Ichikawa’s original, with young women’s marriages being an Ozu-like central concern, and arranged marriages still very much the way things are done. There is, however, one very significant change Yamada makes to Ichikawa’s original: the siblings in About Her Brother are considerably older than the ones played by Keiko Kishi and Hiroshi Kawagichi in the earlier film. Ginko and Tetsuro have experienced much more of the world than the siblings in Ototo, and this allows Yamada to explore the theme of the effects of time’s passage that gives the film’s final scenes their powerful poignancy.

Yamada strikes a seamless balance between the old and new in About Her Brother, such that elements of his tale that may seem outdated do not come across as anachronistic or create logical dissonance. Yamada’s films envelop the viewer in a warm and generous embrace, emotionally satisfying as well as beautifully constructed, achieving this with an invisible style recalling classic Hollywood cinema as well as many earlier Japanese films. This loving attention to detail and craftsmanship extends to the film’s performances, especially those of Yamada regular Yoshinaga and Shofukutei as the siblings. Yoshinaga is compelling as the sister who is torn between her efforts to shake some sense into her brother, and her willingness to allow him to remain who he is. Shofukutei, a popular rakugo (storyteller) comedian in Japan (and who also appears in the Japan Cuts selection Dear Doctor), brilliantly conveys the garrulous and irreverent nature of his character, and is equally adept at handling the more dramatic scenes late in the film.

About Her Brother screens at Japan Society on July 16, 6:15pm. Click here to purchase tickets.

Yoji Yamada -- "Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp": Q&A at Japan Society, 10/17/08

Yoji Yamada has become of late one of my favorite directors. This prolific Japanese filmmaker creates films that are old-fashioned in the very best sense. He is a humanist in every sense of the word: the relationships and struggles of common people are solidly at the center of his works, and all of his stylistic choices are in the service of this focus. Yamada's recent "samurai trilogy," The Twilight Samurai, The Hidden Blade, and Love and Honor, based on the novels of Shuhei Fujisawa, proved that his talent remains undimmed after 72 films (and counting). Yamada, however, will forever be best known as the director of the 48-film series featuring as its main character Tora-san, the itinerant traveling salesman played by Kiyoshi Atsumi. Yamada collaborated with Atsumi on all except the third and fourth films in this series, which ended with Atsumi's death in 1996. All of these films followed the same template: Tora-san returns to his home after a long period away, and stumbles into adventures, always meaning well yet managing to make a mess of things. He invariably falls in love with a woman along the way, but ultimately a lasting relationship is not to be. Yamada assembled an impressive stock company with these films, playing family and friends of Tora-san, most notably the exquisitely lovely Chieko Baisho, as Tora-san's sister Sakura, and brief appearances by Chishu Ryu, Ozu's frequent lead actor, as a priest. These actors also frequently acted in Yamada's non-Tora-san films. All of these films exhibit the qualities that makes Yamada's films so special: a deep love of humanity, a generosity of spirit, and an engaging mixture of humor and sentiment that makes these films always a pleasure to watch.


On October 17, 2008, the Japan Society in New York launched their monthly film series, "Best of Tora-san," running through May 2009, and consisting of eight episodes selected by Yamada himself. The first screening was of the very first film in the series, Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp (1969). Yamada gave a live Q&A after the screening via digital video feed from Tokyo's Keio University. Below are clips of that conversation.


Yamada's opening remarks:

On the transition from a television series to a film series:

On how the character of Tora-san relates to certain Japanese cultural concepts (Part 1):

(Part 2):

On the influence of rakugo (Japanese storytelling art) on the conception of Tora-san's character, and the origin of his name:

Yamada's answer to my question about the casting of Chishu Ryu:

On the connection of the Tora-san films to the social and political realities of the time (Part 1):

(Part 2):

On the status of Tora-san as a national icon:

And finally, Yamada joins the Japan Society audience for a virtual photo-op:

"Japanese Screen Classics: In Honor of Madame Kawakita": Review Round-up

"Japanese Screen Classics: In Honor of Madame Kawakita," a series of 24 classic works of Japanese cinema, screens at the Walter Reade Theater through August 14. The "Madame Kawakita" in question is the late Kashiko Kawakita, the film programmer, distributor, and all-around champion and promoter of Japanese cinema. The series is organized around the eight directors who have won the Kawakita Award, honoring lifetime achievement in Japanese film, including such towering figures as Akira Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima, Seijun Suzuki, and Shohei Imamura, as well as relatively lesser-known directors as Kaneto Shindo and the documentarian Sumiko Haneda. Yoji Yamada and Kon Ichikawa are also featured in the series; each director is represented by three films apiece. Below are brief reviews of notable films in the series.

Her Brother (Kon Ichikawa, 1960)


Shot expressively in widescreen and muted but incredibly textured color, Ichikawa’s film about the complex and tortured relationship between two siblings, Gen (Keiko Kishi) and Hekiro (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), is one of his greatest films. Anchored by the beautifully nuanced and volcanic performances by Keiko Kishi as the older sister Gen and Kinuyo Tanaka as the ailing, hyper-religious stepmother, Ichikawa makes full use of his wide frame to depict the warring family members in monumental close-ups, alternating with scenes of kinetic and chaotic movement (e.g. Gen being doggedly stalked by a police officer), and wonderfully comic sight gags (e.g. the gaggle of geese that interrupt the policeman’s attempts to seduce Gen). In the film’s latter scenes, as the brother slowly dies of tuberculosis, the camera framings are less claustrophobic, and convey the unbridgeable separation of the family members from each other. Hekiro’s death elicits a numbed response from Gen, finally separated from her true soulmate. The great cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, that great color artist of postwar Japanese cinema (e.g. Ozu’s Floating Weeds), contributes a burnished look that is perfectly commensurate to the film’s period setting. The nuances of the sibling’s relationship are quite fascinating. Gen’s self-sacrificial actions toward her brother, bailing him out and covering for him, are very much self-serving, since by caring for her brother, she can avoid fully growing up. Hekiro’s pathetic attempts at petty thuggery only very thinly disguise the scared and vulnerable person underneath, which comes fully to the fore as he goes through the stages of dying from TB. In the film’s cruelest irony, the family only exhibits a sense of humanity toward one another when they are gathered around Hekiro’s deathbed. (Aug. 4)



A Last Note (Kaneto Shindo, 1995)


Shindo’s last feature starring his wife, the great Nobuko Otawa, this is a genial, charming film – surprisingly so for a film dealing with aging, suicide, and dementia. The title refers to the suicide of a carpenter who left a terse note – “It’s over” – before hanging himself. He places a large stone next to the note, to be used to pound nails into the coffin that he had made himself before committing suicide. The film features a trio of wonderful veteran actresses, including Haruko Sugimura, who plays Yoko Morimoto, an actress staying at her usual summer retreat. There are several surreally comic set pieces, including a foiled robbery attempt, and the subsequent commendation by the police. The film moves smoothly, maybe a little too smoothly, but is a pleasant enough experience. The story focuses on elderly characters that are very rarely seen on screen. Eighty-three years old at the time he made the film, A Last Note has a freewheeling, digressive air, mixing odd characters and incident, including an erotically charged wedding ritual right out of an Imamura film, frequent allusions to Chekhov, and a celebration of the resilience of older people. Touchingly, the film also serves as a tribute to Otowa, Shindo’s frequent star, who was suffering from terminal cancer during the shoot, and died just days after its completion.

Tora-san’s Sunrise and Sunset (Yoji Yamada, 1976)



Opening with a hilarious parody of Jaws, this installment, the seventeenth, of the beloved series of films about Tora-san, the genial everyman, continually underestimated by his family members and his friends, who turns out to be the wisest and most perceptive of all the other characters, is an enjoyable and touching film, that made me want to go out and see the rest of the series. At the outset, Tora-san takes serious umbrage upon hearing that his nephew was teased at school because Tora-san is his uncle, whereupon he goes out to get drunk. He comes upon a seemingly destitute old man (Jukichi Uno), who attempts to leave the bar without paying for his drinks, angering the proprietress. Tora-san gallantly pays for drinks, and they go out on the town barhopping. They both come home stinking drunk, in the old man’s case quite literally. The man angers Tora-san’s family, ordering everyone around. Eventually Tora-san sits him down, explaining “This isn’t an inn,” which surprises the old man, who thought that was exactly what it was. To make amends, he draws a doodle on a piece of paper, telling Tora-san to sell it at a bookstore. Tora-san is dubious, but does so, and learns that this alleged vagrant is actually the world-famous artist Ikenouchi. Tora-san returns home, displaying the large sum he received from selling the drawing, and his family is ashamed over how quickly they leapt to conclusions about the man based on appearances. Tora-san crosses paths with Ikenouchi again, and they spend time together, where Tora-san gets a taste of a life of riches and luxury. He meets and falls in love with Botan (Kiwako Taichi), a giggling geisha who has a semi-tragic back story, having been swindled out of 2 million yen by an arrogant businessman who refuses to return it. Kiyoshi Atsumi played Tora-san for nearly three decades, until his death in the mid-1990s. The films definitely followed a formula, and these films weren’t especially innovative stylistically, but Yoji Yamada, who directed most of the episodes, found remarkable variations on this scenario, as the series reflected changes in Japanese society over the years, as well as preserving a somewhat idealized and nostalgic sense of the past. Tora-san, the genial and kindhearted, if uneducated and impulsive, itinerant salesman always had a home among his family – his sister Sakura (Cheiko Baisho) and his family’s humble sweets shop. The filmmaking is solid and functional, with little flash, but this works very well in the service of the scenario, and is a very entertaining entry in this popular and long-lasting film series. Keep an eye out for a cameo by Chishu Ryu, the great actor most famous from his numerous roles in Ozu’s films, as a rather eccentric priest. (Aug. 2)