Humor doesn't travel well, it's often said, and you'd be forgiven for thinking so when you look at the Japanese film scene. While Kurosawa and Ozu have become household names worldwide, and many samurai and yakuza genre films have been released with English subtitles, comedies seem to have a hard time breaking through the cultural barrier. The only exceptions are the long series It's Hard Being a Man, starring Atsumi Kiyoshi as Tora-san (1969-1995), and a few films by Itami Juzo. But there seem to be no comedies from the 1960s that have been subtitled and released outside of Japan. This is all the more unfortunate because such movies can tell you a lot about everyday life in Japan, both at home and in the office. The Toho company was very active in the humorous film genre, with the iconic actors Ueki Hitoshi and Morishige Hisaya. Here we will look at the movies made by Ueki Hitoshi.
Ueki Hitoshi (1926-2007) was a comedian, actor and singer representing the Japanese post-war miracle. Born into a family of priests in Mie Prefecture, he began his career as a singer and guitarist in Tokyo immediately after the war. He first became famous as a member of the Crazy Cats, a comic jazz band with Hana Hajime and Tani Kei. Their act was full of wacky gags a la the Marx Brothers. Ueki and the Crazy Cats also became a big hit on television. One of Ueki's most famous songs was Suudara bushi from 1962, with the nonsensical lyrics "I know it, but I can't stop.
Ueki made his film debut in Masamura Yasuzo's remake of The Woman Who Touched the Legs (1960), but his breakthrough came with his own feature, the classic comedy The Age of Irresponsibility in Japan (Nippon Musekinin Jidai, 1962). Here (as in most of Hitoshi Ueki's other movies) we also find his co-stars Hana Hajime and Tani Kei. This movie, in which Ueki played a wayward salaryman, was very much in the spirit of the times. Thanks to the hard work of its people, Japan was prospering again. The 1960s was the time of consumerism, of TVs, cars and "my homes". It was just before the Tokyo Olympics and the nation felt confident about the future. It was even possible to work a little less hard and enjoy life.
This is exactly what Ueki's salaryman type does. He is "genki," optimistic and energetic. While his colleagues sit yawning at their desks, he storms into the office, yells "Work, work," and starts working the phones to make a sales appointment with a big voice and a smile - his toothy grin has become his trademark. He is the archetype of the ideal employee. But he also has an "irresponsible" side: he doesn't care about small rules and procedures, sets his own time, jumps the hierarchy and uses very unusual methods to be successful. He boldly says what he thinks. Any real-life employee who tried to behave like Ueki would have been fired within seconds. But it was satisfying to see a guy on film breaking all the office rules! It gave the real salarymen of Japan the motivation to continue their grinding work.
The Age of Irresponsibility was so popular in Japan that more movies featuring Ueki were made at a rapid pace. There was another "irresponsibility" movie, Nippon Musekinin Yaro, the Irresponsible Guy of Japan (also 1962). Another group of Ueki films was created around the title "Nippon Ichi no XX Otoko", "The Best XX Man of Japan", starting with Nippon Ichi no Iro Otoko, The Sexiest Man of Japan, followed by Nippon Ichi no Gomasuri Otoko, The Greatest Flatterer of Japan (1965) and Nippon Ichi no Gorigan Otoko, The Greatest Pusher of Japan (1966). A total of ten of these movies were made by 1971. In all these movies, Ueki plays basically the same type of salaryman, and this was also true for a third series of movies with the word "Crazy" in it. While all the above mentioned Ueki movies had musical numbers (Ueki suddenly starts singing and dancing in the streets, a la Bollywood), in the "Crazy Series" the Crazy Cats band comes on stage and the music is more elaborate. A good example is Honkon Kureeji Sakusen, Hong Kong Crazy Strategy (14 movies were made until 1971).
Finally, there is a fourth series in which the salaryman character of Ueki is transported to the past and runs around as a crazy salaryman samurai. A good example is Horafuki Taikoki, The Bluffing Hideyoshi. A total of four movies were made. Besides these series, Ueki also appeared in a number of other comedies during the same period. So the 60's can rightfully be called the crazy, irresponsible age of Ueki Hitoshi!
The director of many of these movies was Toho comic genre director Furusawa Kengo (and to a lesser extent Furosawa's colleague Tsuboshima Takashi). A popular female counterpart (or "Madonna" as the Japanese say) was Hama Mie, best known in the West for her role in James Bond's You Only Live Twice (1967).
In the 1970s the tide turned and Ueki Hitoshi lost his comic appeal. He had some quiet years as far as movies were concerned, but in the 1980s he appeared in many movies again, often in very different roles from the comedies of the 60s. For example, he played a very serious supporting role as General Fujimaki in Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985). In the 90's his popularity was back, now mixed with nostalgia as his films started to appear on DVD. Like the ideal grandfather, always smiling, Ueki was a frequent guest on TV shows and was also asked to do almost countless TV commercials. He also continued to make movies, almost until his death in 2007 - the last movie he appeared in was Maiko Haaan, in which he played an elderly company owner from the Nishijin weaving district.
Ueki Hitoshi's comedies are symbolic of Japan's post-war white-collar era, and are great time capsules of Japanese homes and offices in the 1960s. They are the ideal films about the life of a salaryman. Why are they not better known outside Japan?