is a
1987
Events January
* January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency.
* January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade.
* January 3 – Afghan leader ...
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
ese film written and directed by
Juzo Itami
, born , was a Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director. He directed eleven films (one short and ten features), all of which he wrote himself.
He is the namesake of the Juzo Itami Award, founded in 2009 to honor his legacy.
Early life
...
. It won numerous awards, including six major Japanese Academy awards. The title character of the film, played by
Nobuko Miyamoto, is a tax investigator for the Japanese
National Tax Agency
The is the official tax collecting agency of Japan. As of October 2018, the Commissioner of NTA is Takeshi Fujii.
Mission
Mission: To enable taxpayers to properly and smoothly fulfill their tax responsibility.
To achieve the mission stated abo ...
who employs various techniques to catch tax evaders.
Itami took inspiration for the movie after entering a higher
tax bracket
Tax brackets are the divisions at which tax rates change in a progressive tax system (or an explicitly regressive tax system, though that is rarer). Essentially, tax brackets are the cutoff values for taxable income—income past a certain poin ...
following the success of his first film, ''
The Funeral''.
A sequel, ''
A Taxing Woman's Return'', featuring some of the same characters but darker in tone, was
released in 1988.
Plot
A female tax auditor, Ryōko Itakura, inspects the accounts of various Japanese companies, uncovering hidden incomes and recovering unpaid taxes.
One day Itakura persuades her boss to let her investigate the owner of a string of
love hotel
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sex. The name originates from "Hotel Love" in Osaka, Japan. Although love hotels exist all over the world, the ...
s who seems to be avoiding tax, but after an investigation no evidence is found. During the investigation the inspector and the inspected owner, Hideki Gondō, develop an unspoken respect for each other.
Itakura is promoted to the post of government tax inspector. When the same case involving Gondō reappears Itakura is again allowed to investigate. During a sophisticated series of raids against the hotel owner's interests, she accidentally comes across a hidden room containing vital incriminating evidence.
Six months later the two meet again. Gondō is tired after daily interrogations. Itakura tries to persuade him to surrender his last secrets for the sake of his son. Gondō asks Itakura to leave her job and come live with him, but she declines. He cuts his finger and writes the name of the secret bank account in blood on a handkerchief of hers that he saved from the first time she investigated him.
Cast
*
Nobuko Miyamoto: Ryōko Itakura
*
Tsutomu Yamazaki: Hideki Gondō
*
Masahiko Tsugawa
, born Masahiko Katō (加藤 雅彦 ''Katō Masahiko''; January 2, 1940 – August 4, 2018) was a Japanese actor and director.
Career
Tsugawa was born January 2, 1940, in Kyoto, Japan. After acting as a child, he made his major debut at 16 in t ...
: Hanamura
*
Yasuo Daichi
is a Japanese actor. He has appeared in more than 50 films since 1979.
Selected filmography Films
Television
References
External links
*
*
1951 births
Living people
Japanese male film actors
Actors from Kumamoto Prefecture
{ ...
: Ijūin
*
Kinzoh Sakura: Kaneko
*
Hajime Asō: Himeda
*
Kiriko Shimizu: Kazue Kenmochi
*
Kazuyo Matsui: Kumi Torikai
*
Hideo Murota: Jūkichi Ishii
*
Machiko Watanabe: Nurse
*
Shōtarō Takeuchi: Rihei Hakamada
*
Hideji Otaki
Hideji (written: 秀治, 秀司 or ひで次) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include:
*, Japanese writer and playwright
*, Japanese baseball player
*, Japanese manga artist
*, Japanese actor
{{given name
Japane ...
: Tsuyuguchi
*
Moeko Ezawa: Gondō's mistress
*
Mitsuhiko Kiyohisa: Gondō's chauffeur
*
Akira Shioji: Realtor
*
Yoshihiro Kato: Yamada
*
Mariko Okada
is a Japanese stage and film actress who starred in films of directors Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita and others. She was married to film director Yoshishige Yoshida.
Biography
Okada was born the daughter of silent film actor To ...
: Mitsuko Sugiura
*
Shinsuke Ashida: Ninagawa
*
Kōichi Ueda: Ninagawa's confidant
*
Yūsuke Nagumo: Ninagawa's henchman
*
Shirō Itō
is a Japanese actor, comedian and television presenter.
Filmography
Film
* ''Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman'' (1971)
* '' Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy'' (1974)
* '' Princess from the Moon'' (1987)
* '' A Taxing Woman'' (1987 ...
: Owner of a pachinko parlor
*
Eitaro Ozawa
, also credited as Sakae Ozawa (小沢栄), was a Japanese film actor and stage actor and director. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1935 and 1988, directed by notable filmmakers such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita ...
: Tax accountant
*
Keiju Kobayashi: Boss
*
Tokuko Sugiyama: Grocery store owner's wife
Video game
A
visual novel
A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...
video game of the same title was published by
Capcom
is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...
for the
Family Computer
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the U ...
in 1989 only in Japan.
Reception
Critical Response
On the
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, 75% of 12 critics' reviews are positive. Derek Malcolm of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' compared it favorably to Juzo Itami's other films saying "the films construction...is tighter and more logical." Roger Ebert, however, gave the movie two out of four stars saying, "I found 'A Taxing Woman' a disappointment after the lean economy of 'Tampopo.'"
Notes
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taxing Woman, A
1980s sex comedy films
1987 films
Best Film Kinema Junpo Award winners
Films directed by Jūzō Itami
1980s Japanese-language films
Japanese sex comedy films
Picture of the Year Japan Academy Prize winners
1987 comedy films
1980s Japanese films
Films scored by Toshiyuki Honda