Japanese "fish out of water" comedies?

[Kevin Heffernan]

I was really taken by Anthony Leong's KOREAN CINEMA
and his idea of the "fish out of water" comedy
exemplified by movies like HI DHARMA, FOUL KING, and
MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER in which an Asian male is
transplanted out of his world of hierarchy and
familiarity and forced to negotiate a new set of
behaviors governed by codes he does not understand.

This genre seems to exploit a universal (while at the
same time distinctively Asian) set of masculine
anxieties in a time of social and economic change. 
SHALL WE DANCE seems to use this template in the
figure of the unhappy salaryman who tries to master
ballroom dancing.

I'm wondering if any of you can think of other
Japanese comedies which use this formula.  In this age
of pan-Asian film distribution, international
coproductions, and fertile crosspolinization of film
genres, it would be interesting to know if the
Japanese have contributed to this production trend or
if there is a separate, uniquely Japanese stream
feeding into movies like SHALL WE DANCE.

Thanks in advance, everybody!


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! 
http://my.yahoo.com