MOVIE REVIEW : Tora-san Saves the Day, This Time in Vienna

“Tora-san Goes to Vienna” (at the Little Tokyo Cinemas) but he doesn’t arrive until 45 minutes into this nearly two-hour film, the 41st in the world’s longest-running film series. Longtime fans of Tora-san (Kiyoshi Atsumi), that lovable, comical itinerant peddler, wouldn’t have it any other way.

First, Tora’s creator, Yoji Yamada, has to catch up with him in some charming out-of-the-way locale and then bring him home to his relatives’ sweet shop in the equally charming Shibamata, that northernmost neighborhood of Tokyo. That Yamada is leisurely about it is the point: in a rushed, busy world only Tora, as feckless as he is and ever luckless in love, seems to have the time to bother with people and their problems.

As always, Tora crosses paths with someone in crisis. This time it’s an exceedingly stressed-out young executive (skinny, rubber-faced comedian Akiro Emoto), whom Tora pulls together at a spa. So grateful is the man that he insists Tora accompany him on a vacation in Vienna, which Tora thinks is some place in Kyushu. Once in the Austrian capital, the executive continues the regimen of wine, women and song--very discreetly suggested, for this is a family film--which Tora introduced him to at the spa. Meanwhile, Tora as usual encounters a pretty young woman (Keiko Takeshita) in distress. She is a hard-working tourist guide, in love with a young Austrian (Martin Loschberger) but desperately homesick.

Of course, the Austrian locales add freshness to the Tora formula, but Yamada amusingly makes the point that Tora might as well have stayed home and in his heart never really left Japan.

The cultural riches and grand architecture of Vienna are entirely lost on this wholly unsophisticated man: all that concerns him is the dilemma of Takeshita, with whom he typically becomes more smitten than he realizes. And although Yamada follows Emoto briefly on a standard sightseeing tour of Vienna, it’s the Austrian countryside to which the director responds to the extent that we understand why Tora sometimes forgets he is not in Japan.

“Tora-san Goes to Vienna,” which has a delightful appearance by the elegant Keiko Awaji as Takeshita’s friend (and, as an inside joke, Harry Lime’s widow), is as sentimental and endearing as its predecessors. The Tora-sans can always be counted on as a year-end holiday treat.

‘TORA-SAN GOES TO VIENNA’

A Kino International release of a Shochiku presentation. Executive producer Makoto Naito. Producers Kiyoshi Shimazu, Kiyo Kurosu. Director Yoji Yamada. Screenplay Yamada, Yoshitaka Asama. Camera Tetsuo Takaba. Music Naozumi Yamamoto. Art director Misuo Degawa. With Kiyoshi Atsumi, Keiko Takeshita, Akiro Emoto, Keiko Awaji, Martin Loschberger, Vivien Dybal, Chieko Baisho, Gin Maeda, Masami Shimojo, Chieko Misaki, Hisao Dazai, Chishu Ryu, Hayato Nakamura. In Japanese, with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Times-rated: Family.