A Taxing Woman's Return
by Juzo Itami
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Masahiko Tsugawa, Nobuko Miyamoto, Rentaro Mikuni, Tetsuro Tamba, Toru MasuokaDirector: Juzo Itami
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled
Running Time: 127 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Studio: New Yorker Video
VHS Movie Reviews of A Taxing Woman's Return
Movie Review: when the sequel isn't the equal
Summary: 2 Stars
Japanese writer director Juzo Itami?s sequel to his 1987 A Taxing Woman again features Nobuko Miyamoto as the title character, only this time she isn't around as much. The charm of the original film, apart from Itami?s attempt to present modern Westernised Japan and deliberately despoiling the traditional stereotype, was Miyamoto. A descendant of Giullietta Masina in Fellini?s La Strada, her child/woman with freckles and a Louise Brooks bob was both clown and a perfect antidote to the patriarchy of her society, as the sole female Tax Officer in Tokyo?s Tax Inspection Bureau. Her relationship with the main villian also allowed her a romantic interest. However, although here she has moments of inspiration - her writhing when pretending to be in cultist?s trance, the dance step she takes as she walks down a corridor, and the way she responds to a knife being drawn on her - Itami isn?t interested in simply repeating the formula of the original, so we have to endure long periods without Miyamoto. Itami's point of view this time is more cynical, as opposed to the success of the raid that was the highlight of the first film. Perhaps this might work better for those who haven?t seen the first, but as I had, I was awfully disappointed, since none of the business machinations presented here - whether they involve real estate forced evictions or corrupt religious leaders - not even the Bureau?s investigations, can match Miyamoto or the original.
Itami brings in a sidekick for Miyamoto but soon abandons him, imitates Grace Kelly being strangled in Hitchcock?s Dial M for Murder, and uses the Toshiyuki Honda?s music score sparingly. (In the original it aided the long surveillance and raid sequence).
Summary of A Taxing Woman's Return
In A Taxing Woman's Return, we get a reprise of Nobuko Miyamoto's role as Ryoko Itakura, that indomitable Japanese tax collector who stops at nothing to get her man. In this story she is after the Chief Elder of one of the country's 180,000 registered religions. Onizawa (Rentaro Mikuni) prays for the souls of the sick and the dead with one hand and rakes in billions of yen with the other.His cult, Heaven's Path, has its fingers in several rice bowls, including a huge land scheme involving political graft. Ryoko is on the case, trying to prove that Onizawa is not paying his fair share of taxes, but she gets herself in trouble by working outside the rules.
Itami's habit of following the lives of several characters shows itself to good advantage in this film. His use of visual symbolism also seems stronger and more accomplished. For example, Onizawa has recurring dreams of a sheer rock wall crumbling down on top of him. This image alone helps us to feel his terror and serves to make him a more sympathetic character even though he does some very unsympathetic things.
Unfortunately, Miyamoto's character seems almost incidental to this story. Itami, as usual, introduces her in the first scene and then forgets about her until the end of Act I. It's the tremendous performance of Rentaro Mikuni and the insightful look into the problem of corruption in Japan that makes this film worth viewing. --Luanne Brown
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