TOKYO MIGHTY GUY

“I'd have plenty of fingers to spare counting the vintage Japanese pop musicals I've seen, but boy I hope they're all this cool.” -- Matt Lynch, Letterboxd

Nikkatsu, the oldest film studio in Japan, inaugurated a star system in the late 1950s, finding talent and contracting them to a series of wild genre pictures. These “Diamond Guys” films are relatively new to the U.S., and feature Nikkatsu’s leading talent at the peak of their game.

Megastar Akira Kobayashi (“the Japanese Elvis”) is Jiro, the rambunctious chef who opens a restaurant in the busy Ginza district. His culinary skills and dashing good looks bring in the women as well as unwanted trouble, while an explosive political scandal builds around his girlfriend’s business.