Director Juzo Itami was viciously attacked by the Yakuza after making this scathing satire on the Japanese mob's extortion tactics. Noboku Miyamoto (Itami's wife and star of A Taxing Woman) is radiant as a clever lawyer who is hired to rescue a large hotel that's become a favorite hangout of the gangsters. While the humor is a little more forced here than in such Itami classics as The Funeral and Tampopo, this is still a lot of fun and likely to be quite popular art film audiences. (R. Pitman)
Minbo
(Public Media Home Vision, 800-323-4222, 123 min., not rated, in Japanese w/English subtitles, avail. Nov. 29) Vol. 10, Issue 6
Minbo
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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