A Taxing Woman

Plot

The taxing woman of the title is Nobuko Miyamoto (the wife of director Juzo Itami), who works for the Japanese version of the IRS. She is also "taxing" in her insistence upon upholding the letter of the law and doggedly tracking down tax cheats. Her current quarry is millionaire Tsutomu Yamazaki, who uses his mob connections to evade paying what he owes the government. This "untouchable" cheat is brought to heel by the diligent Miyamato -- and Yamakazi is so overwhelmed by her persistence that he falls in love with her and proposes marriage! Things get even goofier in the 1988 sequel, titled (you guessed it) The Taxing Woman's Return. The first Taxing Woman was originally released in Japan as Marusa No Onna. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Review

Juzo Itami's follow-up to his popular satires The Funeral and Tampopo tops both of those films with a wildly convoluted story and biting social observations. At the opening, the English-language version informs the viewer of Japan's astronomical tax rates and how Japanese at all class levels have made a national sport out of cheating on those taxes. A Taxing Woman is part police procedural, part social comedy, with a generous helping of feminism tossed in. A woman is a rarity in the Japanese tax service, and the film cleverly makes this woman one part awkward social creature and one part sincerely dedicated professional. (That she's a single mother is only obliquely dealt with.) Nobuko Miyamoto is brilliant in keeping those contrasting traits in balance; she never comes off as cloyingly confused, nor is she irritatingly by-the-book. Her quarry, the owner of a chain of "adult" hotels, is played by Tsutomu Yamazaki, her co-star in The Funeral, as a suave but dangerous man who can't help but admire his persistent adversary. Itami stages many scenes in confined spaces: the tax offices, choked with cigarette smoke and the chattering of agents working the phones; the villain's cluttered house, with secret compartments and rooms to conceal his activities; and the hotel rooms, with their crumpled sheets and messy bathrooms. He brilliantly orchestrates the relationships among the characters to suggest the increasing admiration all of the male characters come to feel toward the taxing woman. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Cast

• Nobuko Miyamoto - Ryoko Itakura, Tax Inspector
• Tsutomu Yamazaki - Hideki Gondo
• Masahiko Tsugawa - Assistant Chief Inspector Hanamura
• Hideo Murata - Motel president
• Shuji Otake - Tax office manager

Daisuke Yamashita - Taro Gondo; Shinsuke Ashida - Ninigawa; Keiju Kobayashi; Mariko Okada - Mitsuko Sugiura; Kiriko Shimizu - Kazue Kenmochi; Kazuyo Matsui; Yasuo Daichi; Kinzo Sakura; Hajimeh Asoh; Shiro Ito - Owner of a Game Center; Eitaro Ozawa - Tax Accountant

Credit

Juzo Itami - Director, Akira Suzuki - Editor, Toshiyuki Honda - Composer (Music Score), Yonezo Maeda - Cinematographer, Seigo Hosogoe - Producer, Yasushi Tamaoki - Producer, Juzo Itami - Screenwriter

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