In Yoji Yamada's 35th installment in the Tora-san series, Tora-san The Go-Between (1985) a structural shift seems to taken place. In the earlier films of the series Tora (Kiyomi Atsumi) had romances with the leading ladies of his generation-Machiko Kyo, Kyoko Kagawa, Ruriko Asaoka, Ayaka Wakao, and others. At this point Tora is in his 50s and rather risk the dirty old man troupe, Yamada has Tora acting as a matchmaker with younger actresses. in this case he travels to the Goto Islands in Nagasaki where the "Hidden Christians" escaped during the Edo era. Here Tora and his buddy Ponshu (Keiroku Seki) help a little old lady who has fallen and then spend an enjoyable evening with her. Early in the morning she dies and they help out digging her grave and attending a church service for her where they her grand daughter from Tokyo, Wakana (Kanako Higuchi). Tora falls for her but tries to help bookish law student Tamio (Mitsuru Harata) woo her once back in Tokyo. The usual pre-credits sequence has a lampoon of Shohei Imamura's Cannes winning film of the same year The Ballad of Narayama.
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