Tôkyô no abarenbô

After mastering the art of French cuisine, young Jiro (Akira Kobayashi) returns to Japan and opens a restaurant in the busy streets of Ginza. His dashing looks, iconoclastic culinary skills, and charismatic character attracts not only women, but unwanted trouble. Things get personal when he finds out that a scandalous political figure is trying to take over his girlfriend's business.

We start out with what seems like it might be another Nikkatsu gangster film, with women in the bathroom slapping each other. That is always a good thing. But then it gets more silly, almost like a French musical... like "Girls of Rochefort". As a noted scholar said, there is "nothing intrinsically Japanese about Nikkatsu films in the 1960s". And this film proves it.

One thing this film had me wondering: do they actually play "Here Comes the Bride" in Japan? They do in this film, and that seems very strange to me, especially because we have English words to go with the tune. Do they have different words? And how did this get to be a universal wedding song?