空想天国 / Kūsō Tengoku / Fantasy Paradise (1968)

Release date: August 17, 1968

Director: Takeshi "Ken" Matsumori
Studio: Toho
Cast: Kei Tani, Wakako Sakai, Akira Takarada, Yû Fujiki, Hajime Hana, Senri Sakurai, Yoshiko Toyoura, Makoto Fujita, Akemi Kita, Akihiko Hirata, Ikio Sawamura et al.
Avaiability: Streaming on Amazon Prime (Japan only). An unsubtitled DVD is also available. No known recent screenings.

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We've got a fairly obscure one today. It's got all your usual Toho guys (and gals) in it, but for some reason you have to go to the film's Wikipedia page to find out that Hirata is in the cast at all. IMDb doesn't mention him, and neither does eiga.com or even TohoKingdom. Not sure why this is; he's got a small role, but he's definitely there. For those keeping score at home (Me. It's just me.) that's five Crazy Cats movies Hirata's been in: 

• Musekinin Yūkyōden [It's a Bet, AKA Tale of Irresponsible Justice]
• Kureji no Daibakuhatsu [Crazy Big Explosion]
• Kurējī no Musekinin Shimizu Minato [Crazy Irresponsible Shimizu Port, AKA The Boss of Pick-Pocket Bay]
• Kurējī no Nagurikomi Shimizu Minato [Crazy Raid on Shimizu Port]
• This movie.

And as long as we're talking Crazy Cats, RIP Hiroshi Inuzuka, who died about six months ago and was the last surviving member of the troupe.

A lot of people might not know about this, but Toho is arguably referencing Gamera in the name ("Gamara") of the protagonist's imaginary frog friend. A lot of ink has been spilled about what an officially-sanctioned Godzilla vs. Gamera movie would be like, and that may never come to pass, but it's interesting that as early as 1968, Toho was acknowledging their biggest rival.

It should also be noted that "kuso" - without the stressed syllables - is basically the equivalent of "shit" (or can be used to convey that something is smelly/shitty). I cannot imagine that this was unintentional.

Anyway, let's get it going. I'm using my usual method of putting on the Japanese subtitles and pointing my phone at the screen to translate. Again, all screenshots are from my own DVD copy, but everything contained therein is copyrighted to Toho.

This movie has some very cool animated opening credits.

Kei Tani plays Keitaro Tamaru, an absent-minded office worker at an architectural firm who lives with his mother. He has an imaginary friend named Gamara, and the film opens with a dream sequence in which Keitaro and Gamara are torpedoing enemy subs until their own sub is hit and sunk. When Keitaro goes into work that day, he gets news that a school building his firm designed recently collapsed in an earthquake. He goes to Kaitō to meet with the daughter of the school's principal, who died in the collapse, and subsequently gets into a brawl with Yû Fujiki and his goons about whether the collapse was the fault of Keitaro's firm or of the builders, who cut corners during construction. This whole thing doesn't really come up again, but it's an excuse to have Fujiki in the movie, and I always like seeing him be a goofball, so I can't complain.

Akira Takarada is here too. And he plays soccer. His character is named Maeno, and he and Keitaro are constantly competing for the affections of the same women - Maeno far more effortlessly than Keitaro.

The primary "gimmick" of this movie is that Keitaro keeps lapsing into elaborate fantasy sequences where he's any number of archetypical heroes: sometimes a swordsman in a jidaigeki, sometimes a singer with a ukulele, sometimes a soldier at war, sometimes a Western-style, gun-toting badass who must defeat his opponent, "One-Eyed Jack" (Maeno) before he marries the girl Keitaro has a crush on. I was really, really hoping Takarada would show up in an eyepatch so I could make some terrible jokes, but alas, he does not.

Also, I gotta be honest here, Gamara kind of scares me.

Black eyes... like a doll's eyes.

One day, Keitaro's boss lets him know that he's bought into a new building material that's supposed to be super-strong but super-light, and is extremely valuable. Everyone wants to get their hands on it, but the plans that incorporate this new material are top-secret. Keitaro keeps mum, but pretty soon there's a robbery at the firm and some of these important plans are stolen. The thieves knock the chief of security unconscious and kidnap his daughter, Hiroko. We find out that this theft was an inside job, and the shot-caller was the firm manager's secretary, Michiko, who we'd met earlier in the film. Keitaro and Maeno both pursue, but the cops get the wrong idea about Keitaro and arrest him. Maeno is stealthier, and makes it to the apartment where Michiko and her thugs have Hiroko tied up, but ends up in the same situation as Hiroko.

Meanwhile, Keitaro breaks out of jail and a long chase/fantasy sequence ensues, but it's all in vain as the criminals catch him too and whisk the three of them - Keitaro, Maeno, and Hiroko - off to some kind of secret location on an island. Their boss is, of course, Akihiko Hirata with a highly dastardly goatee. (His character is just credited as "Boss" here, no actual name.)

The three of them eventually escape, and locate a raft, but unfortunately the raft only fits two people, so Maeno and Hiroko return to the mainland for help while Keitaro has another fantasy sequence. The cops show up, arrest all the criminals, and Keitaro still does not get the girl, because that would ruin the whole point of the film.

This movie... eh. I think I'm just not a fan of the kind of comedy where the whole joke is "isn't it funny how no one will date this guy". It's visually a treat - I didn't take many screenshots, but the entire film has beautifully vibrant, uniquely 1960s cinematography. The action is fun, and the framing device of the protagonist repeatedly having fantasy and dream sequences allows for more action than would otherwise befit a movie like this. But all things considered, I wasn't too jazzed about this one, which is a bit dismaying. I never thought I'd be at a point in my life where I could think an industrial espionage comedy musical where the main character has an imaginary friend who's a guy in a frog suit was boring. Apparently, when this came out, it was released on a double-bill with Admiral Yamamoto, which is... certainly one hell of a double-bill.

I don't think this was the best entry into the Crazy Cats canon for somebody completely unfamiliar with it, but fortunately I've found that all of the other films I mentioned at the start of this review are also available to buy on amazon.co.jp for the next time I feel like being financially irresponsible.

If you're also interested in Crazy Cats, there's a really wonderful website run by someone who gives easier-to-read (though still in Japanese, you'll have to use a translator) information than Wikipedia on all the films and more.