Hajime Hana

Another Crazy Cats comedy caper, this time bringing them on a whirlwind global tour on a chase after a glorious Aztec treasure.Read More »

Picked up and raised on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, Yasukichi’s only trait is his innate mischievousness. However, because his love for his hometown is exceptionally stronger than anybody’s, he is trying everything he can to somehow help the inhabitants of the island which are going through a recession. He saddles himself with a debt to bring a cheap band onto the island and tries to market the underwater sightseeing ship on the island without regards for the Marine Act…
He’s always blowing his own horn and whenever that backfires, Yasukichi disappears.”Read More »

Burned out butcher Hazama meets a woman at a restaurant and is asked to help her deliver a bag of diamonds.Read More »

Synopsis:
In this downbeat, comedic portrait of ’80s corporate Japan, a section chief and family man (Hajime Hana) fights off the gloom of his impending retirement by rekindling his youthful love of jazz music.Read More »

Quote:
Sabu was once a boy soldier but people in his village disliked him. He finally broke loose when his land was taken.Read More »

Quote:
Yasugoro, goes to live in a quiet town where he falls in love with the priest’s daughter-in-law. His does not declare his love because she is married, but he goes on a mission to please her, and is blinded. Then her husband dies and she remarries before Yasugoro can confess his love.Read More »

Helen and her associates stage a confession play in order to remedy stuttering, but things go amiss.Read More »

Saotome is a white-collar worker and he was neglected by his wife and children at home. He met Gen, a blue-collar worker and they became good friends.Read More »

Before Yoji Yamada started work on the gargantuan Tora-san (男はつらいよ) franchise, he did a couple of comedies with a comedian called Hajime Hana. Most notably are the “Baka” and “Ippatsu” trilogies. “Vagabond Schemer” is the third entry of the latter, which was the last movie Yamada did before the very first Tora-san in the same year. It’s also the third Yamada movie I’ve worked on, and I think it’s my favorite. Where “The Lovable Tramp” was essentially a proto Tora-san, this couldn’t be more removed from that concept. It’s a very black comedy about a boorish man (Hana) who comes back from Borneo one day to find his best friend’s been hurriedly cremated by his fellow tenement dwellers, so he basically starts pestering them and maybe taking things a bit too far in the end. Chieko Baisho who would play Tora-san’s sister Sakura continues to be Yamada’s muse of choice, but she’s not quite as typecast yet in these earlier movies of his, so that’s always nice to see.Read More »