| The Million Ryo Pot 丹下左膳余話 百萬両の壺 | |
|---|---|
 Original Film Poster | |
| Directed by | Sadao Yamanaka |
| Produced by | Nikkatsu |
| Starring | Denjirō Ōkōchi Shinbashi Kiyozo |
| Distributed by | Nikkatsu |
Release date |
|
Running time | 92 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
The Million Ryo Pot (also known as Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryō (Japanese: 丹下左膳余話 百萬両の壺, Hepburn: Tange Sazen Yowa: Hyakuman Ryō no Tsubo)) is a 1935 Japanese jidaigeki comedy film directed by Sadao Yamanaka.[1][2] The plot revolves around a pot, which contains the map to a treasure worth a million ryō, that is lost by its owner and comes into the possession of a young boy, who happens to be under the custody of the great rōnin swordsman Tange Sazen (played by Denjirō Ōkōchi). Unaware that he is in possession of such riches, Tange spends much of his time caring for the boy and bickering with the boy's adopted mother, his love interest, in a manner akin to a screwball comedy. The film is a parody of the more serious samurai films of the time, with Yamanaka transforming Tange from a rebellious, anarchic rōnin (as he was in earlier films) into a child-loving and openhearted homebody.[3]
The film is the earliest of Yamanaka's three surviving films and he directed it when he was 25 years old, a precocious achievement. In Japan it is considered one of the nation's best films. Kinema Junpo, the leading film magazine of Japan, ranked it the 7th best Japanese film of all time in a 2009 poll of leading critics.[4] Akira Kurosawa cited it as one of his 100 favorite films.[5]
- ^ "丹下 左膳" (in Japanese). kotobank. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
- ^ "丹下左膳余話 百萬両の壺" (in Japanese). Kinema Junpo. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
- ^ Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro (2000). Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-2519-2.
- ^ "「オールタイム・ベスト 映画遺産200」全ランキング公開". Archived from the original on 15 December 2009. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
- ^ Thomas-Mason, Lee (12 January 2021). "From Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese: Akira Kurosawa once named his top 100 favourite films of all time". Far Out Magazine. Retrieved 23 January 2023.