Otoko wa Tsurai yo

Otoko wa Tsurai yo
Poster for the 18th film, Tora's Pure Love (1976)
Directed by	Yoji Yamada
Written by	Yoji Yamada Yoshitaka Asama et al.
Starring	Kiyoshi Atsumi Chieko Baisho Chishū Ryū
Cinematography	Tetsuo Takaba
Music by	Naozumi Yamamoto
Distributed by	Shochiku (Japan)
Release date	1969–1995
Running time	110–140 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, It's Tough Being a Man) is a Japanese film series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi as Tora-san (寅さん), a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. The series itself is often referred to as "Tora-san" by its fans.^[1] Spanning 48 installments released between 1969 and 1995,^[2] all of the Otoko wa Tsurai yo films except episodes 3 (Azuma Morisaki) and 4 (Shun'ichi Kobayashi [jp]) were directed by Yōji Yamada, who also wrote (or co-wrote) all the screenplays.

Each film featured a different leading lady, called a Madonna, and a different region of Japan. (There were also episodes that featured scenes in Arizona and Vienna.) Two films were usually made each year between 1969 and 1989, one for summer and one for New Year release. From 1990 to 1995 only one film was made each year, for New Year release. AnimEigo released a box-set of the first four films in the United States in 2009 under the title "Tora-san".^[3] The series holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running movie series starring a single actor.^[4]

The film series had presumed to have ended with Atsumi's declining health and death from lung cancer at age 68, without Tora-san ever settling down and finding domestic happiness. Atsumi was so identified with the Tora-san character that his death was also considered by fans to be the death of Tora-san. Director Yamada had decided at the time not to continue the series after Atsumi's death, but reworked a Tora-san script stuck in development as Niji wo Tsukamu Otoko starring Nishida Toshiyuki as a traveling cinema operator. Although Niji was a tribute to movies in general, the final scenes were Yamada's touching, loving posthumous tribute to the Tora-san series and to Atsumi Kiyoshi. Almost all of the principal actors from Otoko wa Tsurai yo have cameos in the Niji film, and the Tora-san character even makes a surprise cameo appearance near the end of the movie. The film ends with a dedication to Atsumi Kiyoshi.

However, the 50th Tora-san film, Tora-san, Wish You Were Here, was released in Japan on December 27, 2019.^[5] Atsumi appears throughout the film as flashbacks, using footage from his dozens of performances as Tora-san in the previous films, with the cast members in contemporary Tokyo recalling his presence in their lives.