Kirai Kirai Kirai / 嫌い嫌い嫌い / (‘Hate hate hate’, 1960)

 

Ichiro Sugai

 

Sojuro Shinkawa (Ichiro Sugai) is the elderly chairman of the Shinkawa conglomerate, a position which he was hoping his son, Sotaro (Kenji Sugawara), would succeed him in. However, Sotaro has rebelled and gone off to do his own thing, so Sojuro gathers the presidents of the six companies which make up the conglomerate and asks them each to select their most promising employee and send them to head office, where they will compete to marry his granddaughter, Kikuko (Atsuko Kindaichi), and the winner will be groomed to become the new chairman. 

 

Atsuko Kindaichi

 

The six men chosen run the gamut from the ultra masculine Nagaoka (Ryuichi Ishii) with his impressive chest hair to the effeminate Hirose (Kanji Matsumoto), who drinks only milk, a thermos of which he always carries with him. Other candidates include Sakurai (future director Juzo Itami), who used to be friends with Kikuko as a child, the handsome and modest Tsujimoto (Jiro Tamiya), who appears to be the favourite, and coal miner Fukumitsu (Gen Mitamura), who is conflicted due to his secret love for co-worker Sumiko (Junko Kano)…

 

Jiro Tamiya

 

This Daiei production was based on a novel entitled Hana no sarariman (‘The Flower Salaryman’) by Keita Genji (1912-85), a writer well-known for this type of material whose work also provided the basis for many other films including Masumura’s Blue Sky Maiden (1957) and The Most Valuable Wife (1959). 

 

Junko Kano

 

Sachiko Hidari

For me, the main appeal was that it provided a rare chance to see another film by Hiroshi Edagawa, whose Roses Bloom on The Rose Bush (1959) I liked so much. However, this one is less interesting as it’s basically a piece of fluff, albeit a well-made one which is not unentertaining. It’s an ensemble piece with no real star at the centre, although Jiro Tamiya and Junko Kano were both beginning to get popular at the time and Sachiko Hidari also appears prominently, although in a role that has little bearing on the story, while Kazuko Matsuo pops up singing the title song in a nightclub (to which you can listen on YouTube here). Even Bokuzen Hidari makes an appearance as one of the company presidents - which may well be the most untypical role he ever played. Anyway, for the most part, it's a pleasant enough time-passer, though the gay stereotyping of Kanji Matsumoto’s character is regrettable. 

 

Bokuzen Hidari

 

A note on the title:

Kirai can also be translated as ‘I hate it’, ‘I hate you’, etc, so the tag line on the Japanese posters should probably be read as ‘I hate him because he’s handsome! I hate him because he’s rich! I hate him because he has chest hair! Is that really true?’

 

Kazuko Matsuo

 Watched with dodgy subtitles.