A seemingly worthless family heirloom—a battered kokezaru pot—suddenly becomes the object of frenzied pursuit when it’s rumoured to contain a hidden map to a treasure worth one million ryō. But unbeknownst to the pursuers, the pot is in the care of an orphaned boy named Chobi-yasu, who uses it to house his goldfish. As rival clans, frustrated samurai and scheming relatives chase the pot across Edo, fate throws the gruff, one-armed swordsman Tange Sazen and the sharp-tongued Ofuji into the unlikely role of guardians to Chobi-yasu.
With its slapstick charm, fast-paced antics and sincere emotional beats, Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryō is less about riches and more about the joyful chaos of human connection. Full of warmth and wit, director Sadao Yamanaka’s genre-defying comedy is an enduring classic of Japan’s early sound era.
Special Event
Post-Film Talk
Sadao Yamanaka: A Voice Calls from the Abyss
Amongst the Japanese Film Festival 2025’s appealing array of 1930s classics from a range of Japanese masters, there is a name that may be unfamiliar: Sadao Yamanaka. Dr Russell Edwards will punctuate the Melbourne ACMI screening of Tange Sazen and the PotWorth aMillion Ryō (1935) with an informative introduction to this wonderful filmmaker, whose career was eclipsed by time and fate.
About the Speaker
Dr Russell Edwards is an Asian Film specialist who covered the Tokyo, Busan and Hong Kong film festivals as a critic for Variety. A former President of the Film Critics Circle of Australia, his upcoming book, Representations of Japan in South Korean Cinema of the Park Geun-hye Era will be published by Routledge in March 2026.
Audience warning: mild coarse language, mild themes of death and gambling, very mild violence
