Directed by Juzo Itami

Maverick director Juzo Itami didn’t direct his first feature—the alternately bawdy and bittersweet satire THE FUNERAL—until the age of fifty, but it announced the arrival of a fully formed sensibility unafraid of skewering the most sensitive aspects of Japanese society. Though his follow-up, the rapturous “ramen western” TAMPOPO, would become his biggest international hit, it is only one jewel in a remarkably rich filmography that abounds in funny, sensual, and surreal pleasures. Frequently built around strong women—almost always embodied by his regular leading lady and real-life wife, the indomitable Nobuko Miyamoto—Itami’s films take bold, iconoclastic aim at everything from corporate corruption (A TAXING WOMAN) to mortality (THE LAST DANCE). With his incendiary yakuza spoof THE GENTLE ART OF JAPANESE EXTORTION, Itami may have succeeded too well; the film’s blockbuster success made the director a target of violent yakuza retaliation—and allegedly played a role in his mysterious death at age sixty-four.