Minbô no onna (1992)

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Siskoid
It's crazy to think that Minbo: The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion might have caused Juzo Itami his life, or even if that tale isn't true, provoked a savage knife attack on his person a few days after its premiere (leading to public outcry and government crackdown on their activities, ergo the story about Itami meeting with foul play five years later). If the Yakuza felt slighted that he would satirically portray them as bullies and thugs, they went about proving him wrong in the oddest way. And look, it's just a very amusing film in the style of A Taxing Woman, with the wonderful Nobuko Miyamoto starring as a lawyer whose expertise is Yakuza extortion methods based no civil disputes. A hotel is being terrorized by a number of gangs - as it was marked as easy prey once the personnel started to fold to their demands - and she comes in as their white knight to fix the problems. Not that it's gonna be easy. Plenty of surprises to be had over the course of the film. Itami's secret recipe is easy to decode, but difficult to reproduce: Choose an unusual walk of life to make "heroic", then cast the always charming Miyamoto in the role. Done. I, for one, would love to live in the timeline where the Yakuza had a sense of humor about themselves and there were more films in the Itami/Miyamoto cannon. 1 year 8 months ago