is a 1936 Japanese

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by Hiroshi Shimizu. It is based on a short story by

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning novelist

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...

, and noted for its portrayal of

depression-era The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

Japan and its

location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for exam ...

Plot

A bus driver, nicknamed Mr. Thank You due to his expressions of gratitude to other road users who give way on the narrow mountain roads, drives from rural

Izu Izu may refer to: Places *Izu Province, a part of modern-day Shizuoka prefecture in Japan **Izu, Shizuoka, a city in Shizuoka prefecture **Izu Peninsula, near Tokyo **Izu Islands, located off the Izu Peninsula People with the surname

*, Japane ...

to faraway

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The film portrays the passengers and their diverse reasons for travel, like a mother and her daughter who is destined to be sold in Tokyo, and the people they meet on the way, including a Korean working woman who makes funeral arrangements for her deceased father. In the end, Mr. Thank You marries the daughter to save her from her fate.

Cast

Ken Uehara was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1935 and 1990. He starred in ''Entotsu no mieru basho'', which was entered in the 3rd Berlin International Film Festival. His son is the singer and actor Yūzō Kayama. Sel ...

as Mr. Thank You (Arigatô-san) * Ryuji Ishiyama as Gentleman with beard * Einosuke Naka as Peddler *

Michiko Kuwano was a Japanese film actress. Career Kuwano was born in Shiba ward, Tokyo. After graduating from Mita High School in 1932, she first worked as a "sweets girl" for Morinaga & Company before entering the Shochiku film studios in 1934, where she g ...

* Mayumi Tsukiji * Kaoru Futaba * Reikichi Kawamura as Villager from Tokyo * Setsuko Shinobu * Kazuji Sakai as Peddler * Nagamasa Yamada as Peddler

Literary source

''Mr. Thank You'' is based on Yasunari Kawabata's 1925 short story ''Thank You'' (''Arigatō''), which itself is part of his ''

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories is the name Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata gave to 146 short stories he wrote during his long career. The earliest stories were published in the early 1920s, with the last appearing posthumously in 1972. The first Japanese edition to collect ...

'' cycle. In Kawabata's original story, the only passengers portrayed are the mother and daughter, who are driving to a harbour town 35 miles north, where the girl will be sold to a man she has never met. The mother begs the driver to take care for her daughter, who seems to find him sympathetic. After an argument in the lodging house, where the trio stayed overnight, the driver reluctantly agrees to take the girl with him, but only for the cold season.

References

External links

* * * {{Hiroshi Shimizu 1936 films 1936 comedy-drama films Films based on short fiction Japanese comedy-drama films Japanese black-and-white films Films based on works by Yasunari Kawabata Films directed by Hiroshi Shimizu Films with screenplays by Hiroshi Shimizu Great Depression films Films set in the 1930s