Flunky, Work Hard!
Japanese name
Kanji腰弁頑張れ
Directed byMikio Naruse
Written byMikio Naruse
Starring
  • Isamu Yamaguchi
  • Tomoko Naniwa
  • Seiichi Kato
CinematographyMitsuo Miura
Production
company
Distributed byShochiku
Release date
  • 8 August 1931 (1931-08-08) (Japan)
[1][2]
Running time
29 minutes[1]
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Flunky, Work Hard! (腰弁頑張れ, Koshiben ganbare) is a 1931 Japanese silent comedy drama film directed by Mikio Naruse, and the first surviving film by the director.

Plot

Insurance salesman Okabe is scolded by his wife for their shortage of money and always being behind with their rental payments. He promises that the situation will better soon, as he is about to sell an insurance policy to Mrs. Toda, a wealthy neighbour. At Mrs. Toda's house, he gets into an argument with Nakamura, a competing salesman. As a result, Mrs. Toda throws both of them out. Meanwhile, Okabe's son Susumu gets into a fight with the neighbour's kids, including Mrs. Toda's son, for not letting him play with their toy airplane. Okabe, afraid that Mrs. Toda might sue him, scolds Susumu and comforts her son, taking him home. Mrs. Toda, who has heard that a child was hit by a train, is relieved by the sight of Okabe and her son and agrees to buy an insurance from him. Okabe decides to surprise Susumu and buys a toy airplane for him. Back home he learns that it was his own son who was hit by the train, and runs to the hospital. Susumu is in a critical condition, but finally recovers.

Cast

  • Isamu Yamaguchi as Okabe
  • Tomoko Naniwa as Okabe's wife
  • Seiichi Kato as Susumu, Okabe's son
  • Shizue Akiyama as Mrs. Toda
  • Tokio Seki as Nakamura
  • Hideo Sugawara

Release

Flunky, Work Hard! premiered in Japan on 8 August 1931.[1][2] It was shown in the U.S. as part of a Naruse retrospective in 1985, organised by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute and film scholar Audie Bock.[3][4]

Reception

Naruse biographer Catherine Russell called Flunky, Work Hard! a combination "of nansensu comedy,[lower-alpha 1] tendency film, and shoshimin-eiga with a particularly flamboyant method of decoupage".[6]

Notes

  1. ↑ "Nansensu", the Japanese loanword for "nonsense", can refer to the silly or to the sarcastic and satirical.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "腰弁頑張れ (Flunky, Work Hard!)". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  2. 1 2 "腰弁頑張れ (Flunky, Work Hard!)" (in Japanese). Kinema Junpo. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  3. ↑ "Mikio Naruse: a master of the Japanese cinema". CineFiles. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  4. ↑ "Mikio Naruse: A Master of the Japanese Cinema Opens at MoMA September 23" (PDF). Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  5. ↑ William J. Tyler, Introduction: Making sense of nansensu Japan Forum 21 no. 1 (2009)
  6. ↑ Russell, Catherine (2008). The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4290-8.
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