Tange Sazen and Pot Worth a Million Ryo
Tange Sazen and Pot Worth a Million Ryo
Tange Sazen Yowa: Hyakuman Ryo no Tsubo | Sadao Yamanaka, 1935
Japan | Japanese with English subtitles | Format: 35mm | 92 minutes
This highly enjoyable, comical take on the stereotypically somber samurai genre comes from Sadao Yamanaka, a filmmaker and leader of the Narutaki cinephile group of Kyoto (who wrote under a collective pseudonym). In the delightful A Pot Worth a Million Ryo, a man gives away a crusty pot he inherited, but embarks on a madcap hunt to retrieve after discovering that it contains a treasure map. Ending with a humanist message about the inexorable role of chance in human affairs, it features a fantastic performance by the iconic Denjiro Okochi.
