"There's no fool like an old fool." Yasuo Tsuruhashi's comedy "Black Widow Business" is a feature-length illustration of this venerable saying, though it also reflects present-day trends in an aging Japan.
The "fools" in question are the graying Lotharios who fall for the middle-aged charms of Sayoko (Shinobu Otake), a scam artist working in cahoots with Kashiwagi (Etsushi Toyokawa), the louche president of a shady match-matching service targeting elderly, well-off men.
Based on a novel by Naoki-Prize-winning author Hiroyuki Kurokawa, "Black Widow Business" is directed and scripted by TV veteran Tsuruhashi, and shares some of the all-too-common faults of TV dramas here — from over-plotting to a final descent into dotabata (slapstick) wackiness.
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