This article really has very little to do with Kabuki. It is connected to the two previous articles (Kabuki in NYC and its Follow-up) since Nakamura Kanzaburo is mentioned. I was going to include this at the end of the second article, but it was a bit too long…so instead, it has become a “coda”.
The day after the last performance of Hokaibo in Avery Fisher Hall, Nakamura-sama attended the world premiere of a film in which he co-starred, Yaji-Kita Douchu Teresuko. The premiere was held at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center…the English title was Three for the Road. Incidentally, this was his first movie starring role in 46 years…he was 6 years old when he was in Acchan no Bebi Gyangu (1961).
The film is the most recent in a line of Yaji-Kita road-themed movies and it does have some similarities with the US “Road” films of Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, and Bing Crosby (seen in the publicity poster for The Road to Morocco on the right…courtesy MovieDiva, Jr.). The director, Hirayama Hideyuki, even stated at the screening that he always enjoyed the half dozen Hollywood “Road” movies.
However, while the first US “Road” movie (The Road to Singapore) appeared in 1940, the first Yaji-Kita film (Yaji-Kita Jigoku Gokuraku) appeared in 1927…so this movie is more of a nod to the previous Yaji-Kita films than to the similarly themed US films.
Nakamura-sama and Hirayama-san had been planning to do a Yaji-Kita film since the mid to late 1990s. In 2005, Nakamura-sama’s son, Shichinosuke, starred in Mayonaka no Yaji-san, Kita-san. Commenting at the screening, Nakamura-sama said, “(My son) beat me to it, so we re-wrote the script. We made a movie that’s like soaking in the tub at an onsen [Japanese Hot Spring].”
This last comment probably refers to the fact that Mayonaka no Yaji-san, Kita-san was a fast, surreal ride. One IMDb reviewer wrote about Shichinosuke’s film - “Its like Brokeback Mountain meets Sailor Moon, on speed.”
According to Jim Van Maanen, who attended the screening, Yaji-Kita Douchu Teresuko is:
“…sweet, silly, occasionally funny…The film is of the light, popular sort that we rarely see here in America, probably due to cultural differences and references that go right over our collective head.”
The Japanese premiere is set for November.
At the screening, the three stars dressed in the 19th century costumes of the film. Here they are on (or at least by) the streets of New York:
left to right: Nakamura Kanzaburo (52), Emoto Akira (58), and former idol singer Koizumi Kyoko (41).
Sources:
Yaji-san, Kita-san in New York City
Hirayama Hideyuki’s Three for the Road Premieres at Lincoln Center