(Admission free for Harvard students; for complimentary tickets, please use RIJS2023)

Introduction by Jay Sakomoto & Video Introduction by Yamada Yoji

Screening on Film
Directed by Yamada Yoji. With Atsumi Kiyoshi, Baisho Chieko, Mitsumoto Sachiko.
Japan, 1969, 35mm, color, 91 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: HFA

The comic yet quite moving story of a once wayward youth turned itinerant peddler who returns to his suburban Tokyo hometown only to find he still does not quite fit in, Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp injected a new vitality into the shoshimin eiga with its richly detailed depiction of the working-class community living in the shadows of the local Buddhist temple. The figure of Tora-san was the invention of writer-director Yamada Yoji, who created his character first for a popular TV series before adapting his story for the big screen. As Tora-san, Atsumi Kiyoshi boldly embodied a rough-around-the-edges everyman (with hints of yakuza experience) that proved so wildly popular, Shochiku created what would become the longest film series in the history of world cinema, with forty-eight Tora-san features made (and all but two directed by Yamada) until Kiyoshi’s death in 1996. Shochiku has generously gifted to the Harvard Film Archive a beautiful vintage 35mm print.

(Description by Haden Guest, HFA)

For details, please visit: https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/tora-san-our-lovable-tramp-2023-09