Kigeki ippatsu dai hisshou (1969)

Before Yoji Yamada started work on the gargantuan Tora-san (男はつらいよ) franchise, he did a couple of comedies with a comedian called Hajime Hana. Most notably are the “Baka” and “Ippatsu” trilogies. “Vagabond Schemer” is the third entry of the latter, which was the last movie Yamada did before the very first Tora-san in the same year. It’s also the third Yamada movie I’ve worked on, and I think it’s my favorite. Where “The Lovable Tramp” was essentially a proto Tora-san, this couldn’t be more removed from that concept. It’s a very black comedy about a boorish man (Hana) who comes back from Borneo one day to find his best friend’s been hurriedly cremated by his fellow tenement dwellers, so he basically starts pestering them and maybe taking things a bit too far in the end. Chieko Baisho who would play Tora-san’s sister Sakura continues to be Yamada’s muse of choice, but she’s not quite as typecast yet in these earlier movies of his, so that’s always nice to see.