Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset (17)

Yoji Yamada's 17th episode, Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset (1976), is one of the best ones in the series I've seen so far. The initial dream sequence tells us that this was the summer of Jaws, since Tora (Kiyosumi Atsumi) dreams that he is hunting the shark-there's a great comedic bit where Genko (Naoki Tatsuta) is bitten in half by the shark. Once the story starts Tora brings home what he thinks is a homeless old man (Jukichi Uno),who upturns the household making demands thinking that he's at an inn. It turns out, that he is a famous and successful painter named Ikenouchi Seikan. Later Tora runs into him in old hometown of Tastuno, Hyogo prefecture near Himeji, a famous castle town. The town is hosting the famous painter and while living it up he meets a happy-go-lucky geisha named Botan (Kiwako Taichi), who later on a visit to Shibamata confesses that she too is broke, having lost two million yen (about $15,000 in 1976 dollars), her life savings, to one of her former customers, a callously unrepentant swindler. Tora-san and Taco (Hisao Dazai), the printing shop president next door to Tora-ya, become determined to recover Botan's lost money. Both of the guest stars give standout performances, and it seems that Taichi had a tragic car accident in 1992 that cut her life short.