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Sorry, this movie sucks

Admirable film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This was the first movie of Shimizu Hiroshi I have watched and it left a good impression on me. The story seemed simple, but the scenes were well-executed. The film offers the viewer the chance to hop on Mr. Thank You's bus and drive through Japan's breath-taking countryside while listening to stories of people from all walks of life. It was very interesting to see how Japan looked like in the 1930s as well, far from how it looks like in modern times. All in all, a simple, lighthearted film that I would want to re-watch from time to time.

From the references in the film, it is not hard to infer this takes place in the mountainous southern end of the Izu peninsula (part of Shizuoka prefecture). The towns of Yugano, Kawazu-onsen, and Shimoda (mentioned in the film), are all in this area. The railroad (then as now) runs up the eastern side of the peninsula, so the bus is taking passengers from the relatively isolated western side across the Amagi mountains to the eastern side. From the configuration of roads, we can deduce that the starting point of the journey was probably the town of Matsuzaki.In the film, this picturesque journey feels a very lengthy one. On the modern paved road, the entire trip today takes about 40 minutes by car.

Like Sadao Yamanaka and Mikio Naruse, Hiroshi Shimizu is one of the major Japanese directors whose work has been overshadowed in the West by the popularity of Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Kurosawa, even though his films are every bit as good as theirs. Whereas Naruse's reputation has benefited in recent years from several DVD releases in the U.S. and U.K., however, Shimizu's films are still relatively hard to track down. The release of four of his films by Criterion's Eclipse label helps, but at least four more films have already been released on DVD in Japan and deserve distribution in the West."Mr. Thank-You," as this film is known in the West, is a perfect introduction to Shimizu's work. Like Ozu's films, it is bittersweet in tone, though with perhaps a little more emphasis placed on humor than on pathos. But Shimizu's camera is far more mobile than Ozu's, so stylistically, it has a bit more in common with Naruse. The other two reviewers have already summarized what little plot there is: the film is basically a "road" movie, in which an assortment of middle-class and working-class characters travel from a rural community to Tokyo. As the film progresses, each character's personality reveals itself, and a small, short-lived sense of community develops. Whether or not that sense of community will continue after the film ends (due to a budding romance between the bus driver and a young female passenger who is being sold into prostitution because of family debt) is pretty much the only source of suspense or plot. Nevertheless, as a slice of life, "Mr. Thank-You" is nothing short of magnificent. Shimizu's humanism is evident in every frame of the film, with each character, including the bit parts, emerging as three-dimensional people with very real concerns and aspirations. This is a film you watch for the character development and for the loving treatment the director, writer, and actors give them.As a side-note, Shimizu's importance as a voice of dissent during Japan's militarization and as a link between pre- and post-war Japanese cinema is apparent in the short interlude between the bus driver and a female laborer he offers to give a free lift. The female laborer is Korean, and Koreans were perhaps the most marginalized people in 1930s Japan -- their country having been colonized by Japan and their people reduced to ill-paid, migratory labor. Giving such sweet and tender treatment to this character's plight gives some indication of Shimizu's true feelings toward Japan's imperial expansion and reveals that there's a lot more going on in this film than might first seem.

Nice little Japanese comedy. Mr. Thank You is a bus driver who often brings people from the country to Tokyo. As he drives along the narrow dirt roads, he profusely thanks the farmers and such who move to the side as he passes them. At one village, he picks up a 17 year old girl and her mother. The girl is being transported to Tokyo, where her mother will sell her into prostitution. It's the Great Depression, and the family can no longer afford to support her. Over the course of the trip, Mr. Thank You becomes more and more aware of the girl's sad face. The rest of the bus chat amongst themselves, drink, smoke, whatever. The film runs about 80 minutes, and, honestly, is pretty slight. The titular character and the young girl are rather dull people. A couple of the other passengers are more interesting, but they also are generic types of people (e.g., modern woman or stuffy businessman). It's funny much of the time, and well filmed. I like seeing the Japanese countryside and its people. Japanese films of every era focus way too much on just Tokyo that it's easy to forget the rest of the country.