Word: tora
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...Tora-San is a peddler who hawks his wares at local fairs around the country. He spends the rest of his time with relatives who run a sweet shop in Tokyo's working-class Shibamata district and do little else but eat noodles, prepare to eat noodles or sit around the noodle table. He almost always wears the same outfit, a double-breasted check suit flapping open without a tie, and a green hat. He is a boor, and he treats his long-suffering family like servants. But the Japanese, who know all about pearl fishing, believe that beneath...
...each of the films, Tora-San (Kiyoshi Atsumi) falls in love with a handsome woman. At the end it doesn't work out for one reason or another. He always looks as if his heart will break, and audiences all over Japan cry on cue. Since the first movie was introduced in 1969, an estimated 40 million people have been drawn to that familiar story, and 4 million more are expected to see the latest, which opened in theaters just before New Year's. Atsumi, 54, has become the best-known actor in the country, and no movie...
...Hollywood standards, the latest Tora-San budget, $1.6 million, would fall under the heading "Etc." Yet the one now playing, in which Tora-San plays a Nipponese Cyrano de Bergerac, is almost certain to gross $8 million...
...plot sounds as if it was borrowed from television, the reason is simple: it was. Tora-San began in 1968 as a TV series, but failed to impress network executives. When Tora-San dropped dead after being bitten by a snake, infuriated fans clogged switchboards in protest. The chief fan was Director Yoji Yamada, 51, who persuaded a reluctant film company to let him make just one Tora-San film for general release...
That snake venom should be patented. The picture proved such an instantaneous hit that Yamada was ordered to turn out three more in four months. Since then the pace has slowed, and dedicated Tora-trekkies know that their hero will visit once in August and again just before the new year. Despite the speed at which they are made, the movies are surprisingly polished. After so much time on the assembly lines, the actors are pros, and Yamada keeps the action moving smartly...