Customer Reviews

A Taxing Woman

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This outstanding (five star) movie has illegible captions in the DVD version. If you want to be able to read the captions, buy the VHS version instead. Only get the DVD if your Japanese is good enough to understand the movie without captions.

As Tampopo is truly delicious, this film is an unadulterated joy. Fans of Juzo Itami and his wife, Nobuko Miyamoto will recognize old friends from other adventures in this offering. Like a much beloved repertory company, familiar faces are to be found new and surprising roles.

Taking an unlikely subject for heroic portrayal, Itami's (as usual) delightfully feministic touch on that dreaded villain the tax auditor is effective and engaging. Unlike MINBO, which for some inexplicable reason bores me beyond redemption, this film is easily accessible and eminently watchable. Aside from some quite graphic nudity at the very beginning, (view by parents first), the film is an excellent overall story accessible to an audience over about 15. (Depending on your feelings about sex and taxes).

In reference to the subtitling, I must say that ALL subtitling for Itami's films leaves a great deal to be desired, and I frankly don't see that much difference between the DVD and VHS versions ... but I must admit I am not a connoisseur on the matter, either. The ease of use and storage outweigh all other concerns for me.

Itami Juzo is the Frank Capra of Japanese movies. His plots are always upbeat, the characters quirky, and the good guys always win. Like Capra, he wanted to show people a better way, to show Japan a world where corruption and evil could be brought down by a smiling and plucky woman who doesn't let anyone tell her what she can't do

"A Taxing Woman" ("Marusa no Onna") is his third film, following his masterpiece Tampopo, and is the first in a series of "-Woman" ("-no Onna") films staring his wife Nobuko Miyamoto as the smiling and plucky woman. In this film, she plays a tax collector, on a mission to bring the corrupt and shady businessmen of Japan into line, and get them paying their taxes. Her target is Hideki Gondo, an owner of a chain of Love Hotels who uses a complicated system of phony bank accounts to avoid registering his real income with the government.

Because this is an Itami film, Gondo (played by Tsutomu Yamazaki, also the cowboy Goro in "Tampopo") is not a bad man per se, but just someone out to take a bigger slice of the pie. He is unable to resist the charms of Nobuko, who takes him down smiling, and also patches things up between Gondo and his wayward son Taro. Nobuko is irresistible, and Itami found an amazing muse in his beautiful wife. Here, she is speckled with freckles to give her character a unique look, but her beaming smile and determination are impossible to hide.

However, make no mistake in thinking that "A Taxing Woman" is a G-Rated feel good film. In true Japanese style, Itami has no fear of sex or toilet humor, and plenty of both are on display here. The darker sides of life are not dumbed down, and the Yakuza are nasty people. But, stronger than their nastiness is Nobuko's goodness, and that is the message on display.

Itami is one of Japan's finest modern film makers, and his happy world is always lent a taint of sadness due to his own troubles and unhappy suicide. "A Taxing Woman" is among the best films of his short career, and the only one to merit a sequel, A Taxing Woman's Return ("Marusa no Onna II").

This movie is quite good. Not exactly like Tanpopo but it's a fascinating movie with memorable characters. Unfortunately, the DVD version is absolutely terrible. The DVD version of Tanpopo is a hundred times better. It's very clear that this was a sloppy job. It's nothing but a very poor VHS transfer of the movie to DVD. Bad thing is that the DVD highlights the imperfections of the original VHS so that even people like me can see it. The quality of picture is fuzzy and the subtitles are the ones from the VHS (not DVD subtitles). This results in words that are impossible to see in some scenes and hard to read in all the others since the picture quality is quite fuzzy. Unless you are a die-hard fan of this movie, you're better off spending your money getting the DVD of Tanpopo. The DVD of Tanpopo is not perfect but the quality is still reasonable good and sharp and much better than this ... job.

I have two copies of this movie-one on VHS and this one on DVD. I received the DVD as a present. Itami is one of the greatest modern directors in Japan who unfortunately committed suicide. This movie was enormously popular in Japan and deservedly so with its many touches of black humor, story, writing, acting and direction. The VHS is quite watchable. However, when I put the DVD on I immediately had to adjust my picture settings to even see the picture. It's unclear and fuzzy throughout the movie. In all of the film the English subtitling is difficult and sometimes impossible to read. I would say it is a prime candidate for a recall by the company. Since I can't give separate ratings for the movie vs. the DVD treatment I'm forced to give it 2 stars.

This movie is one of the most perfect crime films I have ever seen. From the first frame to the last frame, it displays total mastery of filmmaking. Despite the language barrier, the acting is breathtaking. This is a director who uses the physicality of his actors in ways that few can. If you are lucky enough to rent or see this film, pay attention to the way the actors move on screen, particularly the genius Tsutomu Yamazaki. Finally, the intricate mechanics of crime and law enforcement are captured in this film, much like HBO's "The Wire" has done in a longer format.

Yet all of this has been said in the other reviews posted here. What I would like to share with the Amazon community is a little-known truth in America: Itami Juzo did NOT commit suicide, but died under extremely suspicious conditions. A well-known and accepted fact in Japan, Juzo was murderd by the Yakuza for making this and the film's sequel.

Like the impact of his films, the reasons for his murder are hard to understand in America. This film and its sequal were made when discussing the Yakuza's crimes publically was a forbidden thing in Japan due to fear of reprisal. Even today, the Yakuza's corruption that permeates Japanese society and politics is very rarely discussed in detail in publications and movies. It is both their extremely violent means and their extremely complex methods of moneymaking using real estate and banking that make this invisible corruption easy to ignore for most middle and upper class Japanese people. For the poor and helpless who are the victims of the Yakuza, they are an accepted fact, to be avoided at all costs instead of being confronted.

Juzo and his wife did not accept this. What Juzo did in his films was expose both the intricate and complicated nature of the Yakuza's crimes and also the methods with which ordinary people could fight them. It was this last part that truely infuriated the Yakuza. After this film as released in Japan, Juzo was attacked in the street and severly beatened, his face scared by razors. It was a clear threat that he must never make a film like this again. He, his wife and his production company defied this threat and completed the sequel, which meticulously documents a complicated real estate and religious scheme just as the first does with a financial scheme. Soon after the release of the sequal, Juzo "jumped" out of a hotel balcony, commiting "suicide".

It is a testement to the realism of Juzo's films that the Yakuza cowards who murdered him considered him such a threat. Juzo's films are that incredibly rare instance where a master artist commits himself to a social cause. That most people who watch his films find them fascinating even without knowing the level of realism that Japanese people find in his work also speaks to his strength as an artist. When I watched this film for the first time, I did not know of the Juzo family's story. After learning more about their bravery, their determination and the tragedy that he and his wife knowingly faced while making this film, I value it even more.

I'll end this review with the plea that you show this film to people and inform them of the truth behind Juzo's unsolved murder. The film is beautiful, savage, and passionate. The acting is simply incredible. And the story of the filmmaker and his beautiful wife working together to help ordinary people stand up the Yakuza is one of the greatest filmmaking stories of all time.

She's rather memorable, this taxing woman. She has a face like a China doll all grown up with freckles around her eyes and a mat of thick dark hair on her head as though cut with the aid of a vegetable bowl. She is Nobuko Miyamoto, wife of the late and lamented director Juzo Itami, and a comedic star worthy of "Saturday Night Live" in its better days. She plays Ryoke Hakura, tireless tax inspector hot on the trail of shady tax dodger Hideki Gondo, played with rakish self-indulgence by Tsutomi Yamazaki. Itami blends situation comedy with some soap opera angst (Japanese and American) to which he adds some ersatz action/adventure shtick (the chase scene near the end with Hakura legging it after Gondo's teenage son, comes to mind) seasoned with a touch of the traditional theater and a little zesty porn, well mixed. The result is interesting and a little jarring.

I was most affected by the atmosphere of this strange and original comedy. I found myself looking at the backdrops and the sets and into the faces of all those very neat Japanese bureaucrats as I followed Ryoko Hakura's tireless pursuit of the missing yen. All that paper work and all those numbers! Interesting were the attitudes and presumptions of the characters in terms of sexuality and social status. We can see that in the modern Japan a woman must navigate her way carefully through the sea of men, while a man must achieve financial success to command respect. And yet there lingers still the flavor and the swagger of the samurai as seen in the scene where Gondo cuts his finger to write a bank account number in blood.

Aside from getting a little soapy at the end, this is fine flick, sly and amusing.

Itami Juzo is the Frank Capra of Japanese movies. His plots are always upbeat, the characters quirky, and the good guys always win. Like Capra, he wanted to show people a better way, to show Japan a world where corruption and evil could be brought down by a smiling and plucky woman who doesn't let anyone tell her what she can't do

"A Taxing Woman" ("Marusa no Onna") is his third film, following his masterpiece "Tampopo," and is the first in a series of "-Woman" ("-no Onna") films staring his wife Nobuko Miyamoto as the smiling and plucky woman. In this film, she plays a tax collector, on a mission to bring the corrupt and shady businessmen of Japan into line, and get them paying their taxes. Her target is Hideki Gondo, an owner of a chain of Love Hotels who uses a complicated system of phony bank accounts to avoid registering his real income with the government.

Because this is an Itami film, Gondo (played by Tsutomu Yamazaki, also the cowboy Goro in "Tampopo") is not a bad man per se, but just someone out to take a bigger slice of the pie. He is unable to resist the charms of Nobuko, who takes him down smiling, and also patches things up between Gondo and his wayward son Taro. Nobuko is irresistible, and Itami found an amazing muse in his beautiful wife. Here, she is speckled with freckles to give her character a unique look, but her beaming smile and determination are impossible to hide.

However, make no mistake in thinking that "A Taxing Woman" is a G-Rated feel good film. In true Japanese style, Itami has no fear of sex or toilet humor, and plenty of both are on display here. The darker sides of life are not dumbed down, and the Yakuza are nasty people. But, stronger than their nastiness is Nobuko's goodness, and that is the message on display.

Itami is one of Japan's finest modern film makers, and his happy world is always lent a taint of sadness due to his own troubles and unhappy suicide. "A Taxing Woman" is among the best films of his short career, and the only one to merit a sequel, "A Taxing Woman's Return" ("Marusa no Onna II").

Unfortunately, this current DVD release is insulting, with a poor quality image and terrible subtitles. Aside from Tampopo, Itami does not really get the respect that he deserves in the US, possibly due to the positive nature of his films being at odds with what one expects from Japanese movie making. Hopefully, a better Region I release is in the future, along with releases for all of Itami's films.

Itami almost never disappoints and his skills have taken a big leap in this film since the time he made "Tampopo" (another must-see movie). A clever script gives a look inside a world must of us will never know--the high-end tax evasion and political corruption that finance the upper ranks of Japan. I spent several years in Japan (and learned more than I wanted, frankly, about the tax system) but this is a level I never saw, although I heard and read a lot about it, and Itami is not exaggerating here. These things really happen!
The actors are all wonderful, cast to perfection and fitting with Itami's slightly slapstick style perfectly.
Now if they'd just get "A Taxing Woman 2" out on DVD--it's 90%+ as good as this one--I'd be a happy man. And I'd be twice as happy if they'd re-release "Minbo no Onna," Itami's brilliant film about the yakuza extortion rackets. It got the yakuza so mad at him he was attacked and stabbed outside his home by a yakuza "street soldier."
Actually, I was surprised to see his relatively weak 1996 effort, "Super no Onna" is out on DVD, and these other, superior, films are not. Licensing decisions can be a real mystery.

I must add my voice to the chorus of complaints about this product. I paid a premium price for this DVD, and received a bad product. The transfer is lousy, in fullscreen, and yes, the subtitles suck. I have to wonder if the Yakuza have mounted a campaign against Itami's work, permitting only poor copies to make their way to the West. Hell, it's so hard to find this man's movies in the U.S. I have to wonder if this is a pirate copy, elaborately packaged and sent out to deliberately frustrate Itami fans.