Release date: July 13, 1956
Director: Kunio Watanabe
Studio: Toho
Cast: Keiju Kobayashi, Hisaya Morishige, Asami Kuji, Yoko Tsukasa, Yasuko Nakata, Norihei Miki, Akihiko Hirata, George Luiker et al
Availability: Available on DVD from Amazon JP and streaming on Prime Video (Japan-only).
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[This is a revised and expanded version of a post that was originally published on April 1st, 2024.]
The President series starred Hisaya Morishige as the president of a company - a different company each time - and Keiju Kobayashi as his secretary, with Kobayashi playing straight-man to Morishige's goofy president. One thing I find interesting about the series is that the names of Morishige and Kobayashi's characters change between films. I'll be honest here and admit that this is the only entry in the series I have actually seen (many such cases), so I can't tell whether the actors play different characters in each separate film, or if they're the same people, just with new names. Norihei Miki, Daisuke Kato, Frankie Sakai, Asami Kuji and Yoko Tsukasa were also staples of the series.
Considering that there were well over 30 of these films made, it's somewhat surprising that Fighting President is the only time Hirata found his way into the President series, and even more surprising that his role in this movie amounts to basically a walk-on. He appears in two scenes, and that's if we're being very generous and counting two people looking at a photograph of his character ("chotto handsome, dessho?") as "a scene". George Luiker, an actor of Armenian and Estonian parentage, also guest stars in Fighting President for the first of what would be four appearances in the President series. Luiker of course later went on to star alongside Hirata in Legend of the Irresponsible Hero.
As I said, this is the third entry, so we're still pretty early into the series, and things are just now starting to take shape that would influence the rest of the films. For example, this is the first time Asami Kuji appeared as the president's wife, and it is also the only time Kunio Watanabe was in the director's chair; most - but not quite all - of the following films were directed by either Shue Matsubayashi, Toshio Sugie, or Yasuki Chiba. Within Japan, this movie was released on a double-bill with Madame White Snake, which most definitely had more staying power in the Western film canon than Fighting President did.
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| Kunio Watanabe (left) with Hisaya Morishige. Credit to @tnmiyako38. |
I want to stay on the subject of Watanabe for a minute, because his Wikipedia page makes him out to be something of an interesting character. Born in 1899, he became a left-wing activist in college, got fired from his first job for spurious reasons, and then met the then-head of Nikkatsu, who hired him on as an actor even though he wanted to direct. Watanabe finally did become a director throughout the 1920s and joined Toho in 1936, at which point his politics had evidently changed; when Toho had a wee spot of union trouble Watanabe led an anti-communist right-wing movement and was vocally anti-union. Following that he joined Shintoho in 1947 and directed their first picture. His Wiki page states that he had a habit of throwing his hat on the ground and stomping on it, which I didn't think was a thing anybody actually did outside of cartoons from the 1920s. He also had twelve siblings.
Ryōzō Kasahara, Fighting President's screenwriter, has a far terser Wikipedia page in terms of personal detail but a filmography that speaks for itself: not only did he pen most of the entries in the President series but also Toho's Sazae-san series, Eizō Sugawa's stellar You Can Succeed, Too, a few of the more famous Crazy Cats/Hitoshi Ueki films and a couple of Wakadaisho movies.
English title translation issues have always plagued the President series. When these movies were released (or even just mentioned) in English-speaking markets, they were usually assigned titles that were some variation upon "Three Gents" or sometimes "Five Gents": Aloha Three Gents, Five Gents Prefer Geisha, Three Gents Go West, Hail the Three Gents, etc. Oddly enough, newspaper reviews and publicity from the time when these movies were being exported (early to mid-1960s, mostly) use the English and Japanese titles interchangeably, and a few President movies seem to actually have been shown under their Japanese title with no translation provided at all.
Within a two-week period in mid-December 1958, Honolulu's Kapahulu theater brought out three Toho hits (or semi-hits): Fighting President, 1956's Hesokuri Shachō under the title "The Frugal President", and - unrelated to the President series, but relevant to our interests - Zoku-Zoku Oban under the title "Mr. Fortune Maker". The English title of the movie we're looking at today comes from that Hawaiian theatrical run. I originally published this post using the title Stuart Galbrath gives it in his magisterial Toho Studios Story, "Company President in High Spirits", but since Fighting President seems to have been handed down by Toho themselves, I've decided to use that one from now on instead. ("Harikiri" is a word that means "enthusiastic", "go-get-'em", "hyped", etc. It has nothing whatsoever to do with ritual suicide.)
France also got involved - the only country I'm aware of aside from Japan and the United States where this film has been released - and re-christened the film "La Vie trépidante des décideurs: l'ardeur au travail", which literally translates to "The Fast-Paced Lives of Decision-Makers: Zeal for Work". Fighting President was screened in France a few times, in fact: once in 2008, once in 2012, and just recently, in February of 2026.
But wait, the title confusion gets worse... You will not find this movie on IMDb under either Fighting President or Company President in High Spirits, but instead "Three Generations of Company Presidents". I have not been able to determine where this title came from. I honestly think, unless I'm missing some international release where it ran under that title, that this could very well be the result of a translation mix-up, since this was the third entry in the President series.
But wait, it gets even worse... 1959's Zoku Shachō Taiheki is on IMDb as "Three Generations of Company Presidents Part II". Not only is Zoku Shachō Taiheki very much NOT a sequel to Fighting President, it's actually a sequel to the first Shachō Taiheki, which is a completely different movie.
You see why I said English titles are a problem with this series?
We'll wrap things up there before it gets any more convoluted, but I'm also going to retain my live commentary from the original version of this post (under a jump cut; slightly revised as well) for posterity's sake.
Heitaro Okanda (Hisaya Morishige) is newly married to a former chanson singer named Chieko (Asami Kuji) as of the beginning of the film. Okanda's company, Taiyo Bicycle, brings in a young woman named Harue (Yoko Tsukasa) because of her English skills, so that she can work in the export department and speak with overseas buyers. Okanda's secretary Kazuo Suyama (Keiju Kobayashi) is quite taken with her.
Dropping in on this series for the first time with essentially no context for it makes for a very interesting watch. Morishige is putting everything into his performance as the president - the comedic effect of this character seems to come from the contrast between how seriously he takes himself and how silly he is objectively being, like when he gets up on a platform and gives a rollicking speech about selling bicycles that Suyama occasionally has to step in and correct.
As such things go, Taiyo Bicycle has to find a way to keep expanding its business, and to that end Okanda goes to Sengoku (Kamatari Fujiwara), the president of one of the company's shareholders, to ask for a loan. Sengoku brings Okanda to his home for a traditional dinner and a night of entertainment, but Okanda has trouble fitting in as he doesn't smoke or drink excessively due to some kind of heart problem. It is a pretty bogus time.
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| pictured: pretty bogus time |
Okanda escapes the situation eventually, but Suyama, who stays behind, finds out that Harue, the new hire who caught his eye, is the daughter of the host's landlady. While the bad vibes continue in the other room, Suyama and Harue sit down in the kitchen to drink coffee (with straws?) and Harue tells Suyama that Sengoku also has a son named Takao. This is where Hirata's character comes in, but don't get too attached to him, because he appears in a total of one and a half scenes.
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| Toho prop department: "I think we should give him a third camera, the audience might not be able to tell he's a photographer." |
Then there's a beauty pageant, because there's always a beauty pageant. A lot of pretty girls ride around on bicycles and have their measurements taken by Okanda and his staff (where the image on the cover of Toho's DVD comes from); the effort gives Okanda a nosebleed. They also have a parade with all the contestants.
The winner, a girl named Momoko (Yasuko Nakata), gets to hang out in the president's office, sit behind the desk, smoke cigarettes, stuff like that. Unfortunately this was scheduled pretty poorly, and George Marner (George Luicker), the representative of an American company looking to contract with Taiyo Bicycle, comes in just as Okanda is assisting Momoko in putting on her bodice. Marner is immediately a mega creep to Momoko before getting down to business, with Harue translating. His fascination with Momoko will continue until he exits the film.
Boy George suggests a cycling trip with Okanda and all of the other Miss Cycle contestants to test out their products. There's some mambo music, everybody shakes a leg, much better vibes than the super awkward dinner with Sengoku earlier.
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| guest star: this cow |
Hirata's character Takao finally enters the picture in earnest (his previous appearance was only as a photograph) while Okanda and everyone are on their cycling mini-vacation. The entire point of this character is so that Suyama has competition in courting Harue (both Suyama and Takao are photographers), but I don't feel that this was handled particularly well; Hirata is in the movie for literally a total of about thirty seconds, so if there was intended to be some kind of love triangle going on here, it's not very effective.
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| Toho prop department: "No, seriously, give him another camera." |
Okanda's new wife, meanwhile, discovers photos of her husband at the Miss Cycle pageant, measuring some other girl's thighs. Later she also catches him getting into a car with Momoko. At the same time, Suyama attempts to confess his love to Harue, who is SUPER not into it. He gives a rousing speech, and at the end of it asks her to marry him, but she wants absolutely none of that. Or... does she? (You know the movie is from the '50s when it takes the girl slapping the guy and telling him to get lost a few times for her to realize she actually does like him after all.)
Eventually Chieko ends up at the same nightclub as Okanda and Momoko. There's more mambo music. Okanda mistakes some random other white guy for George Marner. On the dance floor Okanda gets too into it and loses his shoe while mambo-ing with Momoko, and it's Chieko who finds it for him. They go home and she confronts him with the pictures. He tries to explain, but she throws him out of their bedroom.
Following this the movie begins to barrel towards its conclusion, which is fairly anti-climactic. Okanda goes back to Sengoku, who won't listen to him anymore, and Marner leaves for America. All seems lost and Okanda goes up to the roof where Suyama catches him and thinks he's about to commit suicide - he's not, but Suyama delivers a pep talk anyway and it puts the wind back in Okanda's sails. He makes up with Chieko, too, and soon he gets a telegram from Marner, agreeing to the contract. The film ends with Harue and Okanda leaving for America to meet with him.
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