Ushizure chôtokkyû

"Gyudarê chôtokyu" (The Cattle Comes by Super Express, 1937) is a folksy comedy by Toho studios house director Otani Toshio, starring Watanabe Atsushi and Kishii Akira. The film features a rural setting and a limited cast of characters. The protagonists are two buddies who make a living by transporting goods on a cargo train. Their friends are farmers and other people who produce food. The loose narrative concerns their lives and loves, troubles and tribulations, and also their run-ins with the authorities.

The story isn't much, and the comedy was probably targeted for kids to enjoy. There are plenty of musical numbers, which are also forgettable. Probably this film was made fast with a small budget, with the key demographic probably being audiences in rural communities such as the one depicted in the film. For modern audiences, not very interesting.

Many years ago, Atsushi Watanabe was the guy who lowered the crossing barrier on the local railroad. Kamatari Fujiwara and Akira Kishii were railroad employees who almost got his daughter, Setsuko Himemiya, killed. Watanabe was promoted to station master. The other two men were fired, but kept on by Watanabe. Now they want to use the talent competition at the local festival to launch a career as professional entertainers.

It's a slight semi-musical, with an assortment of western jazz numbers (including "My Blue Heaven"), traditional Japanese ballads, and a Chaplin imitator. This film looks like a B musical, intended to fill out a program and keep the people at Toho working profitably. There's some subtext about the easy-going camaraderie of small towns, but it doesn't seem to add much to anything, except a pleasant 75 minutes.