http://www.seanax.com/2009/11/23/dvd-for-11-24-09-gomorrah-funny-people-and-tora-san/ Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:22:52 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 http://www.seanax.com/2009/11/23/dvd-for-11-24-09-gomorrah-funny-people-and-tora-san/comment-page-1/#comment-4863 Good Things in Big Packages: DVD Box Sets of 2009 | Parallax View Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:08:18 +0000 http://www.seanax.com/?p=3570#comment-4863 [...] 7. Tora-San Collector’s Set: Vol. 1 (AnimEigo) – The stateside debut of a contemporary Japanese cultural treasure: the first four of what became a series of 48 feature films chronicling the misadventures of travelling peddler Torajirô Kuruma (Kiyoshi Atsumi), a bumbling rube with a good heart and bad judgment. Atsumi meandered through these gently sentimental comedies for 27 years (setting a record for a continuing series with the same actor) and director Yoji Yamada (who recently made his name stateside with The Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade) directed almost all of them. The series begins with Tora-san: Our Lovable Tramp (1969, aka Otoko wa tsuria yo, which translates to “It’s tough being a man”), and it front-loads the film with exposition of who he is and where he comes from, but the rest of the film is what defines the character. He’s an uneducated bumpkin with an outgoing personality, a saleman’s patter, and a rare gift for misreading every delicate social situation and blundering through them with grace of a drunken water buffalo. And yet, whether because of his efforts or despite them, everything turns out all right when he’s around. AnimEigo’s box set features the first four films in the series in fine editions with commentary on the first film by film historian Stuart Galbraith IV and program notes on each film. The collection is filled out by Tora-san’s Cherished Mother (1969), Tora-san, His Tender Love (1970) and Tora-san’s Grand Scheme (1970), each film sending him another quest between visits home to cheer his loving little sister and exasperate everyone else. He is, as the box set brands him, “Japan’s most beloved loser,” and these are charming films. More on the set on my blog here. [...] [...] 7. Tora-San Collector’s Set: Vol. 1 (AnimEigo) – The stateside debut of a contemporary Japanese cultural treasure: the first four of what became a series of 48 feature films chronicling the misadventures of travelling peddler Torajirô Kuruma (Kiyoshi Atsumi), a bumbling rube with a good heart and bad judgment. Atsumi meandered through these gently sentimental comedies for 27 years (setting a record for a continuing series with the same actor) and director Yoji Yamada (who recently made his name stateside with The Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade) directed almost all of them. The series begins with Tora-san: Our Lovable Tramp (1969, aka Otoko wa tsuria yo, which translates to “It’s tough being a man”), and it front-loads the film with exposition of who he is and where he comes from, but the rest of the film is what defines the character. He’s an uneducated bumpkin with an outgoing personality, a saleman’s patter, and a rare gift for misreading every delicate social situation and blundering through them with grace of a drunken water buffalo. And yet, whether because of his efforts or despite them, everything turns out all right when he’s around. AnimEigo’s box set features the first four films in the series in fine editions with commentary on the first film by film historian Stuart Galbraith IV and program notes on each film. The collection is filled out by Tora-san’s Cherished Mother (1969), Tora-san, His Tender Love (1970) and Tora-san’s Grand Scheme (1970), each film sending him another quest between visits home to cheer his loving little sister and exasperate everyone else. He is, as the box set brands him, “Japan’s most beloved loser,” and these are charming films. More on the set on my blog here. [...]

]]> http://www.seanax.com/2009/11/23/dvd-for-11-24-09-gomorrah-funny-people-and-tora-san/comment-page-1/#comment-4706 TV on DVD 11/24/09 – Back to the Golden Age and a side trip to the seventies | seanax.com Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:57:17 +0000 http://www.seanax.com/?p=3570#comment-4706 [...] more DVD releases, see my picks for the week at my blog and my DVD column at [...] [...] more DVD releases, see my picks for the week at my blog and my DVD column at [...]

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