Die Todestreppe

Kinji Fukasaku is much better known for his violent and daring films such as Battle Royale and the Yakuza Papers, which is possibly why the cover of this movie boasted "A comedy from the director of Battle Royale". it was a tough tag-line to resist when I saw it on the rack at the video store.

I think the cover should have said something along the lines of "a romantic comedy", or maybe just "romance", because it was much more a romance film than a comedy. Sadly, it's one of those movies that starts out pretty damn funny, but loses its edge. the first half is full of slapstick humor, but I guess they forgot to put it in there in the second half or something.

It began with a hilarious sequence of a samurai movie being filmed. From there, we follow one of its actors, seeing his pretentious and ignorant attitude. The next day he visits his friend Yasu, the movie's fall guy, and tells him that he got one of his on-and-off girlfriends pregnant. He begs Yasu to pretend it's his kid. Yasu and the girl get married and build a surprisingly stable relationship, and everything seems find, but another chance to be a "fall guy" comes up and Yasu is faced with a tough decision.

Some of the scenes between Yasu and Konatsu are kind of cheesy, but there's some good sad moments in there. This includes the best "tearing apart a room" scene I've seen. Yasu's behavior definitely goes a little overboard, but it's more funny than lame.

I'd recommend this to anyone who "gets" Japanese humor. if you can't stand it, this is the last movie you want to see. I found it a little tedious myself, but only because it was inconsistent.

Re-watching this 10 years after seeing it the first time and 31 years after it was made, with more Japanese under my belt, I don't see a fundamental stylistic difference between the humor in this movie from that of "Battle Royale." There's just a shift in emphasis. Both movies are equally misanthropic and mordantly satirical. I get the feeling that the core of both is a disappointed wish to find something lovable about at least two people and a hope that they connect with each other without screwing things up too badly. There's a lot about the three principal characters-- Ginshirô, Yasu and Konatsu--that is cringe-worthy that, if you don't buy it as satire, will repulse you. I get the feeling that Fukasaku couldn't have cared less about audience discomfort. Of course, if you're a nihilist, it won't make you squirm, at all.

Fall Guy is advertised on the front of the recently released DVD as "a comedy from the director of Battle Royale". That last part is true, but it's not entirely a comedy. I was expecting that, and in the first fifteen minutes it is that, incredibly and with total personality-laden hilarity as a Japanese movie star, Ginshiro (Morio Kazama) is a prototypical ego-maniac who is furious that there's stalling on building a gigantic staircase for an action sequence and then proceeds to get drunk and complain about not having enough screaming fans. Up to this point it is a comedy... and then it suddenly starts to unfold deeper, and we meet the characters Konatsu (Keiko Matsuzaka), Ginshiro's presumed love interest and father of her unborn child, and Yasu (Mitsuru Kirata), a close friend and would-be low-level stuntman who may be the father of Konatsu's baby by "default", and it becomes a soap opera.

To say soap opera isn't really to decry it, as one might imagine 'soap opera' to be something already to be wary of. It isn't quite melodrama, though it edges it in some fiery scenes (my favorite was an explosive bit where Yasu rebels from this existential conundrum of doing a non-death-proof stunt down the stairs), and a lot of it surrounds taking care of an unborn baby, marrying someone who might not be the right one and a shady ex-lover who is obsessed with his scenes being cut from the current martial arts movie. So it's all stuff you could possibly catch on daytime TV. The difference is, thankfully, director Fukasaku casts his actors based on impressive personality, on lots of intense emotional power, and he interweaves the personal love story with an absorbing look at the making of Japanese martial arts movies; just watching Yasu in the montage of doing various stunts for 5 to 10 thousand Yen is funny but also a small love letter for the movies.

It's also topped off, I should add, with a climax that has been building for about half of the movie and pays off, incredibly, and is in a way a better climax than some of the rest of the movie deserves. In a way a director like Fukasaku, a seasoned veteran probably not too unlike the director character in the film directing the film within Fall Guy, is needed to imbue the screenplay with real dramatic force and a sense of how to slip in those wonderful bits of comedy. At the least, if you love Japanese cinema, it's worth watching once. At best, it's fun romantic pulp. 7.5/10

A bit player in samurai films does a favor for the hammy star actor by marrying the star's pregnant girlfriend. This movie includes a funny peek at samurai filmmaking. There's a memorable sequence of a filmed samurai battle scene on a staircase and the aftermath.

FALL GUY (KAMATA KOSHINKYOKU) Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, 1982, 109 min

Fall Guy depicts the inside story of a film studio in a comical touch, where a nearly has-been movie star takes full advantage of an adoring member of his entourage & hanger on's blind devotion.

The former has the hanger on, who works as a bit player, marry the lovely actress he accidentally impregnated, in a bid to preserve his image, and then asks the fan to perform a show-stopping, life-threatening stunt in the hopes of making a big comeback.

At times moving, funny, and even romantic, Fall Guy, was well received and has won the first place in the "Ten Best Films" poll by Kinema Jumpo, as well as many other awards.

PS The honeymoon trip to Kyushu is a sweet moment of the film and clearly an inside joke.