Just a few days ago, I watched the first Tora-san film and enjoyed it quite a bit. Because of this, I rented this film--the next in this very long running series. In many ways, it was as good as the first film--with a winning combination of humor and pathos.

The film begins in a humorous vein. Tora-san returns to his family in Tokyo but insists he cannot stay, as he'll only bring pain on them (which we clearly saw in the last film). So, after the briefest of visits he\'s off to the train station but gets diverted when he stops to see his old school teacher and his pretty daughter. But, despite Tora-san's plans not to cause any trouble or inconvenience, that's exactly what he does next--getting sent to the hospital and then getting himself arrested! It seems that once again, Tora-san is a total doofus and rather immune to responsibility.

The film takes a bit of a turn when the film becomes much more serious. This teacher convinces Tora-san that he needs to find the mother who abandoned him in his childhood. However, this meeting is far different from the one Tora-san had dreamed of--his mother turns out to be a pretty crass individual who runs a "love motel" (i.e., a tacky place for a clandestine sex rendezvous). Tora-san is heart-broken and much of the rest of the film is a bit sad--fortunately, the pathos is broken up by a funny scene where all his friends and family try NOT to mention this or talk about motherhood--and, naturally, the topic keeps popping up despite their best efforts. What happens next, you'll just have to see for yourself.

The film is packed with sentimentality, humor and a quirky likability that led to many more follow-up films. While this is far from a must-see film, it is quite enjoyable and well worth seeing--particularly if you, like me, enjoy Japanese films. A nice feel-good sort of light comedy with serious undertones--and a worthy successor to the first film.

Hadn't seen one of these for years. They used to play regularly at our Japanese-only cinema, the Kokusai, now sadly a Denny's. So, watching the DVD of this the second in the series, while not exactly a Proustian experience, forces me to compare memory with fact. I remember a goofily lovable innocent. I find though no innocent, no child-man, but a man adept at conning both others and himself. Tora's patter as fortuneteller: "I'm wrong nine out of ten times. Come on! Take a chance on that one! Take this chance!" Even with self-interest at stake, he externalizes his thought, albeit in the best light. Even one in ten would be a miracle, so sounding honest, he's still conning, whether he knows it or not. What makes Tora Tora is exactly that. Unlike most of us, and unlike his sister's family to whom he comes home at least once in each episode, he voices every whim. His internal censor's broken or never existed. Often an episode's turning point has him physically ill for no reason other than that he's gotten into a state where he can't or can't figure out how to voice whatever notion or desire is the crux of the plot. The family − sometimes it can seem as if all they do year after year is sit there in their open-to-the-street shop waiting for his next return − communicate with sparse oblique chatter. Not one of them has an inner life we can more than speculate about.

Anything but childlike, Tora's not a drunk but he drinks to drunkenness. He's offended by his mother's profession, but (slight spoiler) he'll join her as a bird of the feather. Tora's always and ever an adult. Like many screen or drama fools, he one-ups the better educated, in this film a doctor and, though it's give and take, his own former teacher. The summer I saw this (2002),I finished reading El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, 1,100 pages I'd read before only in translation. When Tora's healthy, he's Sancho Panza, the embodiment of zero restraint. R.H. Blyth, in Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics as well as four haiku compilations with commentary, finds Sancho the embodiment of Zen. Look up Sancho and Quijote in Blyth's indexes to these volumes, and I think you'll find Tora in the passages he quotes.

Director Yoji Yamada recently proved the intricacies of the Torasan series are real, by directing the wonderful and serenely lethal Twilight Samurai. A not bad, though not unqualified, touchpoint for Tora is the protagonist of Punch Drunk Love.

A slight step down from the first, and I did notice that this is heavier on the drama, rather than balancing comedy and drama in a similarly effective manner to the first.

That being said, there is still quite a lot to like, with an overall pleasant atmosphere, good lead performances, and just the whole Japan setting which I'm a complete sucker for atm.

And in the end, a slightly less compelling sequel doesn't deter me from my overall goal of watching every single one of these during 2021.