Director and screenwriter Yoji Yamada, who helmed all 48 installments of the record-setting "Otoko wa Tsurai-yo" movie series, and actor Toshiyuki Nishida, who has starred in Yamada's other two movie series, "Tsuri Baka Nisshi" and "Gakko," team up for a one-shot two-hour TV drama Monday night at 9 p.m. on TBS.
As anyone familiar with Yamada's work knows, his dramas tend to include a liberal dose of sentimental comedy, and the veteran director has decided that the TV suspense genre could use an infusion of laughs. "Urifutatsu," which is the title of the drama, is an expression meaning "like two peas in a pod." It is also the name of the title character, played by Nishida.
Futatsu Uri is a small-time yakuza kingpin in Hokkaido who, as the story opens, is just getting out of prison. His gang, which consists of three men, one of whom is Uri's own son, is waiting with bad news. The recession has pushed them to the edge of insolvency.
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