Last Updated on January 25, 2021 by rob
To spare himself public embarrassment an insecure and ageing movie star named Ginshiro (Morio Kazama) forces his pregnant mistress Konatsu (Keiko Matsuzaka) to marry his lackey Yasu (Mitsuru Hirata). To Ginshiro’s envy the pair fall deeply in love and Yasu – now desperate for money to support Konatsu – volunteers to perform a fall down an oversized staircase on the set of Ginshiro’s latest samurai epic – a stunt so dangerous none of the studio’s veteran stuntmen will have anything to do with it.
Japanese audiences lapped this up in 1982 and it’s easy to see why. It’s both a touching love story as Matsuzaka’s good time girl comes to realize that simple, hardworking country boy Yasu is the caring, faithful husband Ginshiro could never be and an affectionate, playful look behind the scenes of the movie biz. The sequence where Yasu gets his induction into the world of stunt work by recklessly volunteering for every job going and ends up covered in bruises is absolutely hilarious. And although there is much that is light-hearted the story also takes its characters to some very dark places. Yasu (a superb performance from Hirata) slowly peels away the comedy sidekick persona to reveal a man under conflicting loyalties trying to do the best for both Konatsu and Ginshiro. A domestic scene where he snaps and attacks Konatsu – decking her with a punch and then kicking the heavily pregnant woman – is an ugly moment that would normally cause the viewer to lose all sympathy for the character there and then. But the writing and performances slowly pull the viewer back onside and the climactic ending in which Yasu’s fall down the staircase becomes a huge media circus so sure is everyone that he’s going to die, allows director Fukasaku to play his trump card. I can’t tell you what that is, but it’s a thoroughly satisfying and charming moment and entirely in tune with Fall Guy’s love for the magic of movies.
