Tora-san The Expert (30)

Yoji Yamada and his cast and crew made another standout film in the Tora-san series in the 30th installment, Tora-san, The Expert (1982). The pre-credits dream sequence is an homage to West Side Story featuring the fearsome "Brooklyn Tora." On Tora's (Kiyomi Atsumi) first arrival before entering the sweets shop he meets an old neighbor, Momoe, upsetting Uncle Tatsuzo (Masami Shiojo). There's also an unpleasant incident involving portioning out expensive matsutake mushrooms (a delicacy) among family members for dinner that shows Tora's selfishness. He tells Tora to leave and Sakura doesn't try to stop him this time as she feels he is at fault here. Tora finds himself in Oita in Kyushu staying at an inn in Yufuin, a hot springs town. While there he meets a timid zoologist, Saburo (Kenji Sawada) traveling to the inn where his mother worked when she was young with her ashes. Tora and the manager moved by his devotion arrange a funeral ceremony and ask two young women to attend the ceremony. The two young women work together in a department store in Tokyo and one of them, Keiko (Yuko Tanaka), catches Saburo's eye. But he is painfully shy and something of an oddball despite his good looks. Tora vows to help him woo Keiko with the usual antics and despite his bungling they get together.