Customer Reviews

A Taxing Woman's Return [VHS]

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Japanese writer director Juzo Itamis sequel to his 1987 A Taxing Woman again features Nobuko Miyamoto as the title character, only this time she isn't around as much. The charm of the original film, apart from Itamis attempt to present modern Westernised Japan and deliberately despoiling the traditional stereotype, was Miyamoto. A descendant of Giullietta Masina in Fellinis La Strada, her child/woman with freckles and a Louise Brooks bob was both clown and a perfect antidote to the patriarchy of her society, as the sole female Tax Officer in Tokyos Tax Inspection Bureau. Her relationship with the main villian also allowed her a romantic interest. However, although here she has moments of inspiration - her writhing when pretending to be in cultists trance, the dance step she takes as she walks down a corridor, and the way she responds to a knife being drawn on her - Itami isnt interested in simply repeating the formula of the original, so we have to endure long periods without Miyamoto.
Itami's point of view this time is more cynical, as opposed to the success of the raid that was the highlight of the first film. Perhaps this might work better for those who havent seen the first, but as I had, I was awfully disappointed, since none of the business machinations presented here - whether they involve real estate forced evictions or corrupt religious leaders - not even the Bureaus investigations, can match Miyamoto or the original.
Itami brings in a sidekick for Miyamoto but soon abandons him, imitates Grace Kelly being strangled in Hitchcocks Dial M for Murder, and uses the Toshiyuki Hondas music score sparingly. (In the original it aided the long surveillance and raid sequence).