The “Takeshi Kitano film” was also selected! Three wise men who know all about movies from the past, present and future choose the 15 best Japanese films that make you laugh!
The charm of Morita’s world that makes us laugh “between the ordinary and the extraordinary
Want to see a movie that makes you laugh from the bottom of your stomach?
In response to readers’ requests, we invited Naobumi Higuchi, a film director and critic, Noriki Ishitobi, a film critic, and Anko, a comedian who loves movies, to discuss “the funniest Japanese movies”.
Ishitobi: There are two kinds of laughter: the extraordinary laughter and the laughter hidden in everyday life. Director Yoshimitsu Morita is a genius who makes the space between the everyday and the extraordinary into laughter. Of all his films, the one I have seen the most times is “The Mamiya Brothers” (’06), about brothers who live together after turning 30 but are unable to find girlfriends. The older brother, Akinobu, is played by Kuranosuke Sasaki (57), and the younger brother, Tetsunobu, is played by Muga Tsukaji (53) of Drunk Dragon fame.
Anko: It’s really just a normal everyday life. The younger brother played by Tsukaji is an old man who works as a school janitor at an elementary school. There is no dramatic incident.
Ishitobi The brothers are surrounded by beautiful women like Takako Tokiwa (53), Erika Sawajiri (39), and Keiko Kitagawa (39), and they want to talk to them, but they cannot. It is a comical depiction of the embarrassment of love.
Anko: The distance between those brothers is unique. Maybe it’s the scene when they go out to dinner together. They are so close that they play “Glico rock-paper-scissors” and even use their cell phones to continue when they are too far apart to see each other. On the night he talks to the girls, they lay the futon on the floor next to each other and have a reflection session while sleeping. It’s like junior high school students on a school trip (laughs).
Higuchi: Director Morita’s early masterpiece, “Live in Chigasaki,” was a film that simply showed the daily lives of young men and women. In “The Mamiya Brothers,” too, he depicts the subtleties of a man and woman who are nobody. It can be said that this is the essence of his work.
Anko: If Morita’s films are interesting for their “sense of distance,” Keisuke Yoshida’s “Sankaku” (’10) makes us laugh with its portrayal of people. The main character, played by Sosuke Takaoka (43), is an extremely dorky guy ……. He is the type of guy who is overbearing to people who look weak at work, and he goes around acting like a senior to the local juniors.
Ishitobi That’s really uncool, isn’t it? Moreover, his juniors make fun of him behind his back.
Higuchi: At first, it is a love triangle comedy involving the main character, his girlfriend (Tomoko Tabata, 44), and her sister (Erena Ono, 31), but halfway through, it becomes a story about a stalker. It is not unnatural because the multiple facets of the same person are skillfully portrayed, and moreover, it is amazing that there is always laughter.
Director Ishitobi Yoshida once said in an interview, “I want to make a film where you go to the restroom for a minute while watching it, and when you come back, you think it is a different film. That is exactly what this film is.
Higuchi: The lead actor does nothing funny, yet the entire film is full of laughter, as in Masayuki Suo’s “Shall We Dance? (’96). In the first place, people who get into ballroom dancing as adults are, if I may be so blunt, laughing, aren’t they? The more seriously the beautiful duo of Koji Yakusho (69) and Tamiyo Kusakari (60) take it, the funnier it oozes.
Ishitobi When they start dancing, their posture becomes unnatural (laughs). In the Hollywood version, the dance is so slick that it becomes half the funniest thing in the world.
Anko: When Mr. Yakusho and Naoto Takenaka (69) are practicing dancing in close pairs in the bathroom, a stranger comes in and gives them a look that says, “I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. That was great too.
Ishitobi: It was also comical that she started dancing because she was attracted to the dance instructor played by Kusakari, but lied about it because she thought it would be good for her health, which anyone would notice.
Higuchi: Ballroom dancing involves close contact with the opposite sex, and there is supposed to be a hint of a sexual crush, but the dancers keep it under wraps. That is also interesting.
The Kitano films of the world are also among the “funny films!
Ishitobi Speaking of funny movies, we can’t miss the films directed by Takeshi Kitano, can we?
Anko: As a comedian myself, I agree with you. Among them, I think “The Summer of Kikujiro” (’99) is perfect for this time of year. The story is a road movie in which a scary old man, played by Takeshi, goes to visit a boy’s mother with a child who has a reason to be there, and the happenings along the way are very interesting.
For example, at the beginning of the film, the old man is given 50,000 yen by his wife as travel money, and she tells him not to waste it. But about five seconds later, the kid and the old man are already at the bicycle race track (laughs). (Laughs.) The contrast between the no-good old man and the child, who is so pure that he acts out of the blue, is interesting.
Higuchi: Children are always abrupt, aren’t they? That’s why they are funny. That film is about a child, but the appeal of the film itself is that it has the same suddenness as a child.
Ishitobi: While “Kikujiro” is somewhat lyrical, “Outrage” (’10) swings toward violence and laughter. It is Kitano’s version of “Battles without Honor and Humanity,” with its fast-paced exchanges of “asshole” and “you son of a bitch. What’s more, the fact that he does it so earnestly is hilarious.
Higuchi: There is none of the “taciturn male aesthetic” depicted in the ninkyo films of yesteryear. I’m not sure if these are real yakuza or not, but they are funny.
Anko: The advertising copy “All bad guys” was also great. The only person with a kind face is the detective played by Fumiyo Kohinata (71), but that guy is sometimes the worst offender.
Renji Ishibashi (84), a weak gang leader, is attacked at the dentist’s office and gets a drill stuck in his mouth and covered in blood. That was shocking.
In the next scene, when they were eating, Ishibashi, who had a serious mouth injury, said to his brother Jun Kunimura (69), “You should eat, too. Oh, you can’t eat? It is like a four-frame comic strip.
Ishitobi: Tomokazu Miura (73), Renji Ishibashi, and Fumiyo Kohinata. People who have many good roles also play bad guys or comical roles, and when they play bad guys or comical roles, they catch you off-guard and make you laugh or shake. Well, this turned out to be an unexpectedly rich trilogy.
Higuchi: It would not be out of place in “Kinema Junpo,” wouldn’t it? (Laughter)
From the September 12/19, 2025 issue of “FRIDAY
