How many directors make great movies after turning 70? John Huston did it with "The Dead," likewise Akira Kurosawa with "Ran" and Clint Eastwood with "Letters from Iwo Jima," but the numbers are few.
To that short list now add Yoji Yamada. The filmmaker is best known for directing all 48 installments of "Otoko wa Tsurai Yo" (aka "Tora-san"), his film series about a lovelorn peddler. 'Tora-san" put Yamada in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest-running movie series in the world, but not on many foreign critics' best-director lists. Instead, he was denounced by many critics (though not this one) as a studio hack, grinding out easily digestible product for the masses.
Even Yamada, when I first met him in 1991 at the height of his "Tora-san" fame, compared himself to a soba-noodle chef, tossing out bowl after bowl of what he hoped was tasty soup.