Yoji Yamada's 38th entry in the Tora-san series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi, Tora-San Goes North (1987) features legendary guest star Toshiro Mifune (Akira Kurosawa's favorite leading man) and is one of the best episodes in the series. I noticed that this film did not have the usual pre-credits dream sequence but an ode to cherry blossom season in Shibamata by Tora. After the usual family fight Tora heads off to Shiretoko, a beautiful rural region in the northern most island. Yamada uses many stunning scenic shots to the bring the region into the film with a message of taking care of nature and preserving them for the future. There he befriends a gruff vet Uneo (played by Mifune) whose absent daughter, Rinko (Keiko Takeshita), turns up recently divorced from a man her father didn't approve of several years earlier in Tokyo. Tora eases relations between them and acts as something of a cupid bringing the vet and a snack bar madame named Etsuko (Keiko Awaji) together as a couple. Yamada manages to make a statement about the hardscrabble lives of people in rural locations such as those highlighted in Hokkaido.
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