MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Free and Easy’ Still Charms the Second Time

“Free and Easy II” (at the Little Tokyo Cinemas) is a bit more talkative but just as charming as the original. As before, Toshiyuki Nishida’s lowly clerk continues to try to teach Rentaro Mikuni’s harassed company president how to enjoy himself in such casual rigors as fishing. Off hours they’ve become companions, Falstaff and Prince Hal, but in the office their friendship can only exist in secret.

Indeed, the president has developed such a passion for fishing as a way to relax that one day he takes off alone without telling anyone, only to have a mild coronary on the beach. This leads to a beautifully orchestrated sequence in which writing, acting and the direction of Tomio Muriyama coalesce perfectly.

Just as the president is telling himself that there could be no better place to die than by the sea, a beautiful young woman (Mieko Harada) comes to his aid, managing to get him to her nearby hotel suite. He quickly recovers, and in good time she makes a discreet pass, only to have him realize ruefully that under the circumstances his libido could kill him.

At this point the plot thickens mightily, with the Mikuni having to pass off Harada, who proves to be the secretary of a key business competitor, as his daughter. Typically for farce, the ensuing confusion results in humor more verbal than visual, which becomes a little wearying if you have to rely upon subtitles. Even so there’s real merit in this most commercial of comedies (Times-rated Mature), which is based on a Japanese comic strip.

As before, it’s a pleasure to watch a great veteran star actor like Mikuni involved in a breezy comedy. The stocky, square-faced Nishida is an ideal comic foil, but he’s more than that because his free and easy spirit is so refreshingly at odds with the very proper atmosphere of Japanese office life with its slavish obeisance to authority.

Since the script was co-written by the Tora-sans’ Yoji Yamada, creator of the world’s longest-running film series, there’s every reason to expect, at the very least, a “Free and Easy III.”

The theater’s Tora-San Film Festival resumes today with “Tora-San’s Song of Love” and “Tora-San Goes Religious.”