Director: Masahiro Makino
Year: 1939
Rating: 7.5

This is 69-minutes of delight. Totally charming. A Japanese musical comedy. From 1939 directed by Masahiro Makino who would go on to be one of Japan's top directors for decades. The story goes that Nikkatsu had a hole in its schedule due to the cancelation of a film and so they asked Makino to direct a film in two weeks. This is what he came up with - a film that over time has gained quite a fan base and is now considered a classic. It is so much fun. Kind of a Japanese Gilbert and Sullivan operetta of misunderstandings, love and a happy ending. And nearly non-stop song and music. Everybody sings in this and it is the actors doing the vocals. The songs are melodious mixing traditional sounds and Western beats. The lyrics are clever and often amusing. In the opening scene Otomi (Tomiko Hattori) is walking down the village street in feudal Japan with her servant Sankichi. Behind her come running a group of five suitors who sing of their love and their qualifications - the basket seller, the rice seller, the grocer, the coil seller and the liquor seller. To which she sings back "You all have cheap unlikable faces" and Sankichi adds on more insults in song as well.


Otomi has her eyes set on the neighborhood ronin - as does every woman it seems. Next to him lives Oharu and her father, an umbrella maker with a taste for antiques that he can't afford to buy and knows nothing about. Because of that their daily diet is barley and she is yearning for rice. Oharu is a bit of a spitfire taking no sass from anyone, including her father. She is adorable. The umbrellas are lovely and decorated and Oharu (Haruyo Ichikawa) sings to them and refuses to sell one to Otomi because of their rivalry for the same man. The father is played by Takashi Shimura and the ronin by Chiezô Kataoka - two actors who were to become very famous - one for working with Akira Kurosawa and the other for his samurai films. They both have fine singing voices.


The feudal lord complicates matters even more by deciding he wants Oharu as a mistress and connives to have the father owe him 500 ryo which he can't possibly afford. The Lord will force him to give him his daughter. The Lord is played by Dick Mine, who became a very popular singer. But even he isn't really a bad guy. There are no true villains in this film. People just want to love. As Otomi sings at one point to her servant "A woman can make her soul hateful when her love's at stake. So my dear Sankichi play the ugly part for me". This hit all my happy spots.

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