The best Fumio Watanabe’s comedy movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Fumio Watanabe’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Fumio Watanabe.
Equinox Flower
7.8/10
Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.
Death by Hanging
7.5/10
A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief
6.2/10
This is the story of a bookstore thief named Birdy, who is led through various adventures in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by salesgirl Umeko.
Pleasures of the Flesh
6.9/10
A corrupt businessman blackmails the lovelorn reprobate Atsushi into watching over his suitcase full of embezzled cash while he serves a jail sentence. Rather than wait for the man to retrieve his money, however, Atsushi decides to spend it all in one libidinous rush—fully expecting to be tracked down and killed.
Killers on Parade
6.5/10
Mod-sixties visuals and black humor mark this wild New Wave masterpiece about a vengeful contractor who hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition.
Three Resurrected Drunkards
6.4/10
Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action develops into a crime story.
The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan
6.8/10
An outlaw pushes the residents of Edo's red light district to rebel against a growing number of stifling, moralistic laws.
Brothers of Capones
Superbly entertaining action comedy with Tomisaburo Wakayama as Kuriyama Capone who learned his trade under Al Capone in Chicago. The film follows his first venture to Japan with gangster brothers Frank (Shingo Yamashiro) and Joe (Fumio Watanabe). And being chased by gangster and the FBI, including the granddaughter of Eliot Ness. The whole thing is a good amount of fun, the performances especially (Wakayama, Yamashiro, Watanabe in a rare heroic role), making this one of routine director Takashi Harada’s best pictures.
Nippon no obaachan
7.9/10
Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.
