Song of Baseball Enthusiasts
Director: Akira
Kato
Year:
1979
Rating: 6.0
Aka - Baseball
Mad Poem: Northern Wolf, South Tige
Aka - Yakyukyô no uta
The Tokyo Mets are the bad news bears of
professional baseball in Japan. That doesn't deter their fans who come out
in force to cheer or boo them. One of their pitchers is the southpaw Tetsu
who is in his fifties looking for his 200th win and with a fastball that
a fly literally rests on as it goes to the plate. In the final game of the
season, he gets bombed but refuses to let them take him out. He is a legend
and was once great. After the game he makes an announcement which everyone
assumes will be his goodbye speech to baseball. Instead, he promises to be
back the following year and the fans riot and try to beat him up. This is
a harmless light comedy that has its charms and a lot of baseball.
Tetsu says until they find another left-handed
pitcher, he will keep playing. A scout finds one in high school. A girl.
With a submarine delivery and a ball that moves like a flamenco dancer. Yuki
is as cute as a button with legs that could double for straws. She has no
real desire to go pro though especially as a woman where she knows she will
get a lot of flack but Tetsu finally convinces her to at least come out and
throw to him. He wants to see if she is really as good as she looked to him.
When she strikes out the legend Katsuya Nomura (played by him), he knows
she is the real thing. In her first game, she comes in as a relief
pitcher with men on base and the game on the line.
It's a sweet movie that is easy to
drink down and will leave a good taste. Tetsu is played with nutty loud energy
by Asao Koike who you generally see as a tough guy in Yakuza films - here
he is a teddy bear. Yuki is played by Mieko Nobusawa who has a nice wind-up
but isn't too convincing as a pitcher. She has mainly been a voice actress
in anime - Summer Wars, Kiki's Delivery Service. Lee Joo-young is more convincing
as a female baseball pitcher in the Korean film, Baseball Girl (2020).
The film is based on a manga by Shinji Mizushima
that was published from 1972 to 1976 and then adapted into this live action
film, an anime film and an anime TV series. Those follow the career of Yuki
past where this film does.
