THE HANDSOME SUIT/ HANSUMU SUTSU
Japan, 2008, 115 minutes, Colour.
Shosuke Tanihara, Muga Tsukaji, Keio Kitagawa, Mayumi Sada.
Directed byTsutomu Hanabusa.
A broad Japanese comedy of 2008, still relevant. Audiences outside Japan do not often see this kind of popular Japanese-homespun comedy and moralising. (If this were an American film it could well have been made by Adam Sandler starring Chris Farley – as he did with Tommy Boy)/
A lot of talk about being ugly and being handsome throughout the film, so many people targeting those who do not live up to glossy magazine standards, being labelled as ugly.
So, a fable. A genial large, but short, cook in the diner has inherited from his mother and has a large following because of the skills in preparing the menu. But, his friends laugh at him as ugly. When a very pretty young woman asks if a job is available, the friends all say yes, but our cook is hesitant, eventually saying yes. Then, she is so successful, crowds arrived. The cook is smitten but, when she asks him what appeals, his description is totally about her appearance. She rushes away.
In the meantime, we have seen some clothing executives looking at footage and deciding that the cook is perfect for their experiment. They invite him to their shop, provide him with a “handsome suit” which rather looks like a robot, the manager revealing that inside his handsome exterior he is very ordinary.
What follows is a kind of jolly Jekyll and Hyde story, the cook at home as Jekyll, the cook in his handsome suit, Mr Hyde, becoming a model, promoted, top photography, encountering the star model, emotional ups and downs, living the high life, eliciting jealousy from a young would-be model, a near fatal exposure when he has a shower which the suit is not guarded against!
In the meantime, back at the diner, a large genial young woman, is highly successful at the diner despite being labelled as ugly. The cook is comfortable in her company.
Needless to say, there will come a high conscience moment, the cook having achieved absolutely everything in rich society, in advertising society, the clothing manufacturers in offering him an everything-proof suit so that he can be secure and forever in this happiness. Moment of decision. And, at the time, the large young woman at the diner is involved in an accident, the message coming to him that she is in hospital. On the runway with the star, he has a moment of conversion, denounces everything and rushes to the hospital.
There is an entertaining twist that the beautiful young woman at the opening of the film is the daughter of the suit manufacturer and it is she who has put on a fat suit because she likes the cook so much.
Moral of the story, be happy with your true self, as you are..
