Juzo Itami's first film (just ahead of Tampopo) sounds on paper to be a kind of Japanese Loved One, on a less comprehensive and more intimate scale, and it thus threatens to be perhaps a little insular in appeal. Half right. First half only. The degree to which it is both narrowly Japanese and openly communicative could be suggested by the one shot that tells us the Buddhist priest (Chishu Ryu, of innumerable Ozu films) is droning on at unreasonable length: a crawling, prowling, cat's-eye view of the various squatting family members each taking a turn repositioning their feet underneath their respective derrières. That shot alone -- and it is far from alone -- would have marked Itami as a director to watch. With both the Tampopo stars, Nobuko Miyamoto and Tsutomu Yamazaki. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
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