Ep #34 - Post-Anime Club: Juzo Itami & Nobuko Miyamoto
When Jenna and I were deliberating our Post-Anime Club follow-up to the Yasujiro Ozu episode, I’d just showed Tampopo to my partner under the guise of further exploring Juzo Itami’s body of work seeing how, just like most everyone, it had been my only exposure to him. While I vaguely remember liking parts of it upon seeing it about a decade ago, it probably hadn’t moved me enough to dig deeper. However, this time I was far more open to the whole broken-up structure, which dips in and out of sketches and back to the main story. So when I popped in Supermarket Woman shortly after, looking for confirmation, it pretty much sealed the deal on where we’d take this subseries next.
Listen to the episode above for our in-depth Post-Anime Club discussion on Itami’s life and all of his films. Read on for some spicy bonus content aka what makes Juzo Itami so fascinating to me:
LOLs are 24/7 in Supermarket Woman (1996)
I’d say I’ve gotten to know Itami, and by extension his wife and actress Nobuko Miyamoto, pretty well over the course of 2019 through their movies. Beyond doing a staggering 10 feature films together, they also stayed married throughout–having met while working on the set of Nagisa Oshima’s Sing a Song of Sex (1967), until his untimely death in 1997. Itami’s movies are admittedly a little formulaic, yet I can’t help but marvel at how well-oiled they are in delivering this complete package of satire aimed at Japanese mannerisms and customs. Where his peers have this tendency to grind pathos down to a point of self-pity, Itami never succumbed to needless melodrama. And then there’s Nobuko Miyamoto, who’s more often than not the heart of these films; playing an incredibly capable, deceptively scruffy on the surface, everyday super-heroine.
An interesting, and maybe hopeful little fact for all of us late-bloomers out there, is that it wasn’t until 1985’s Tampopo that Itami (52) & Miyamoto’s (40) stars would truly start to shine. Maybe a little more decidedly so in the former’s case, seeing as he’d practically been bred into show business. Juzo Itami’s father, Mansaku Itami, was himself a well known director of satirical samurai pictures. But the younger Itami’s career could have zigged in any which way when you take a look at his life; from his school days as a prospective scientist, to his post-grad days working as a commercial designer, television reporter, magazine editor, essayist, and theater student at the Budai Geijutsu Gakuin in Tokyo. Yet once again we can draw a direct link with his partner, as he finally decided to take the plunge into directing with his debut film Ososhiki aka The Funeral (1984), based on Nobuko Miyamoto’s father’s funeral.
“My soup broth brings all the boys to the shop.” (Tampopo, 1985)
Itami would continue to draw inspiration from real life altercations. Spurred on by the enormous tax bill he’d been served after the success of both Ososhiki and Tampopo, he’d go on to make his next big hit; A Taxing Woman (1987), which also won Miyamoto the Japanese Academy Award for Best Actress. Juzo Itami was not the type to give up without a fight, to say the least. There’s an undeniable hint of machismo in all of these Nobuko Miyamoto-vehicles, but it’s channeled through this scrappy, can-do woman in such a way that they just become so irresistible and charming. Itami and Miyamoto would continue to be an unadulterated success story... for a while at least.
The year 1992 would see the release of what is probably Itami’s most notorious movie to this day: Minbo, The Gentle Art of Extortion. Notorious not for reasons that detract from the experience in any way–unless you’re a yakuza. Like I mentioned before, Juzo Itami wasn’t the type to back down from conflict, a trait that certainly set him apart from modern Japanese stereotypes. “Minbo” translates to “Hopes of the People,” and such was Itami’s goal in making this movie: a how-to in giving the people of Japan the courage to stand up against the yakuza. By the 1980s, a financial boom had brought the yakuza to the forefront, far more aggressive in their real life MO than their fictionalized idealizations. Itami’s motives were noble indeed, but no noble deed comes without a price.
Minbo’s impact and aftermath was huge. Not just for the people of Japan and its government, but for Itami and Miyamoto’s personal lives, which would prove to never be the same again. If there’s one thing bullies don’t like, it’s getting exposed for being “all talk.” On May 22nd, 1992, six days after the release of Minbo, Itami was attacked by five members of the Goto-gumi, a Shizuoka-based yakuza clan. His response to these events boiled down to something along the lines of: “If I’d been making things up, they wouldn’t have had a reason to retaliate. I was attacked exactly because I managed to get to their insecurities.” Classic Itami.
Nobuko Miyamoto tellin’ us all to just “deal with it” in Minbo, the Gentle Art of Extortion (1992)
This would not be the end of it, however, as both sides stubbornly refused to back down. For Juzo Itami’s final film, he’d once again look to real life frustrations to craft Woman in Witness Protection (1997), based on Itami and Miyamoto’s experiences of having to be guarded daily from more potential yakuza reprisals. But alas, it would all end up being for naught. On December 20, 1997, at the age of 64, shortly after allegations from the press about adultery, Juzo Itami’s body was found after having jumped from the roof of the building where his office was located. A former member of the Goto-gumi clan later claimed they’d set Itami up in way where the only outcome was death, either by their hands or his own. Interesting to note is the fact Itami was supposedly planning a movie on the dubious relationship between the Goto-gumi and the Soka Gakkai religion at the time.
I suppose there’s no way to know the absolute truth at this point. There’s undoubtedly some things that do not add up towards Itami taking his own life. His strong sense of what is right and standing up to what is not, and the fact he spent his entire life satirizing Japanese conventions only to end it with suicide to “preserve honour” like some sort of melodramatic samurai. It’s such an absolute shame because Itami’s wit had shown no sign of growing dull, producing some of his strongest works with the trio of movies that lead up to the abrupt end of his career: A Quiet Life (1995), Supermarket Woman (1996), and Woman in Witness Protection (1997). And then there’s Nobuku Miyamoto. Forced to give up the exact thing she was so unbelievably good at, having to spend the next two decades under police protection, which in itself adds even more suspicion to the whole “suicide” claim.
To be honest I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of an Itami resurgence. They’re just so very much their own thing, and more than ever stand the test of time. Like, Tampopo wasn’t a fluke, you guys! So yeah, if you’ve gotten this far, (hopefully) wondering to yourself: “Okay, that all sounds very interesting, but where do I watch these movies, Kent?” Well, you can watch literally every one of ‘em over on the Criterion Channel streaming service, no matter where you live! Truly a blessed time to be alive… for watching Juzo Itami movies.
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