Tora san Goes North

Synopsis

When his travels take him to rural Hokkaido, Tora-san helps a cantankerous old veterinarian (Mifune) in his relationships with his estranged daughter, and a woman in whom he is secretly interested.

Cast

Critical appraisal

Toshirō Mifune was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Japan Academy Prize for his role in Tora-san Goes North. He won awards for Best Supporting Actor at the Blue Ribbon Awards and the Mainichi Film Award ceremonies. Keiko Awaji was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Japan Academy Prize. Stuart Galbraith IV writes that Tora-san Goes North is "funny, charming, and ultimately quite moving". The film unites Mifune and Keiko Awaji who had appeared together forty years earlier in Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949). Noting that Mifune rarely found a good part in the last two decades of his career, Galbraith judges Tora-san Goes North to be "an utterly charming film that gives the great actor one of his last good roles." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times states that this entry in the series is a "little tougher-minded and a little less sentimental than usual, which is all to the good" and that Yamada had "created a role ideal for Mifune." The German-language site molodezhnaja gives Tora-san Goes North three and a half out of five stars.

Availability

Tora-san Goes North was released theatrically on August 15, 1987. In Japan, the film has been released on videotape in 1996, and in DVD format in 1997, 2002, and 2008.