The Japanese film industry makes many comedies, but few parodies of the "Airplane," "Naked Gun" or "Austin Powers" variety. This is puzzling, since Japanese comedy directors have been borrowing freely from Hollywood for generations, including Koki Mitani ("Uchoten Hotel"), who worships at the altar of Billy Wilder.
The argument that the irony-free Japanese audience just doesn't get parody is contradicted by the success Hollywood parody pics have had here. Mike Myers, for one, must be very pleased with his Japanese box-office receipts.
Local filmmakers who try the genre have demonstrated that they can do it side-splittingly well. Two are Richiro Mashima and Masaki Kobayashi, whose "Ski Jumping Pairs — Road to Torino," a faux documentary about the fake sport of ski-jumping pairs, made me laugh until I choked. Another is Makoto Shinozaki, whose "0093 Jo Heika no Kusakari Masao (0093: Her Majesty's Masao Kusakari)" claims to be Japan's first true spy parody. Given that the Hollywood spy spoof has been around for four decades now, Shinozaki has a lot of catching up to do, but he brings it off in fine, funny, highly localized style.
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