A Taxing Woman

Director Juzo Itami (The Funeral, Tampopo) returns with his most ambitious undertaking yet in this delightful comedy which has broken box office records in Japan. The satirical barb is this time aimed at the horrendous tax bite that Japanese citizens are asked to pay. Tsutomu Yamazaki plays Hidecki Gondo, a ruthless operator of pleasure hotels, who is forced to create dummy corporations and launder yen wherever he can to avoid taxes. But one very taxing woman, Ryoko Itakura (Nobuku Miyamoto) gets on his case like a bulldog on a pant leg, and won't be shaken loose for love or money. In her relentless pursuit of Gondo's coin, Ryoko makes the I.R.S. look like Fred Rogers. Itami's humor goes beyond international boundaries (as when Gondo lovingly and hilariously describes the principle of interest as the drops of water you lick from the rim of the glass once its full) to play on subjects just as near and dear to American hearts (or wallets). The icing on the cake is the wonderfully quirky soundtrack music. A sequel A Taxing Woman II is doing landmark business in Japan right now, and we can hardly wait for it to make the trek across. Highly recommended. (Available from: Tamarelle's International Films Ltd., 110 Cohasset Stage Road, Chico, CA 95926.)