Word: sumo
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Without sumo wrestling, there might be no Japan. According to legend, the Japanese won their homeland in a sumo match between a Shinto god named Takemikazuchi and an aborigine. Takemikazuchi "crushed his opponent like grass" and thus took the deed to the Land of the Rising...
Since they owe so much to sumo, it is no wonder that the Japanese are wild about the sport-even though it has lost some of its appeal since the good old days of 2,000 years ago when wrestlers fought to the death. Now they only try to throw an opponent down or force him outside a 15-ft. ring. To most foreigners, the spectacle of two near-naked, 300-lb. behemoths locked in a sweaty embrace, tugging mightily at each other's loincloths and grunting like rhinoceri, is about as exciting as a traffic jam. That makes...
...interrupts a love scene in Hong Kong with his Chinese mistress for the tiresome task of saving the world once more. Conveniently, the assignment takes him only as far as Japan, which gives the camera crews a chance to show a travelogue of Bond orienting himself by watching sumo wrestlers, wandering the neon-bright streets of Tokyo, climbing the green slopes of a volcano as he tracks a supervillain to his lair...
Among composers of electronic music, there is none so mystical and dedicated as Germany's Karlheinz Stockhausen. He talks about "expanded sense of time" and "sound-visions," and when he sees a sumo wrestling match in Japan, he flips because "the prolonged preparation and then the quick violent act" have a profound impact on his music. For the moment, the sounds that come out of his tape recorder put Stockhausen, 38, out in front of the avant-garde by several thousand volts...
Kaplan has played it completely crooked, milking laughs from every possible source--Charles Schulz, Ballantine beer signs, karate and sumo, and cute animals (it really is a charming cat)--except the text. The lines are raced through in a variety of singsongs. This, combined with the broad accents of the actors and the twisted rhymes of the text, make them nearly unintelligible. The production's only continuity lies in running gags...