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His brother is Lord Yagyu, but he is only Genzaburo (Kunitaro
Sawamura), owner of a dojo, and all he got from his family's wealth is a
cheap pot with monkey's painted onto it - almost an insult, actually. Then
though Lord Yagyu learns that a treasure map was painted on Genzaburo's
pot, so he wants to retrieve it. But when an emmissary of Lord Yagyu
offers to buy the pot from Genzaburo under a pretense, this insults
Genzaburo even more, so he sells the pot to a trash collector instead. The
trash collector, Shichibei (Soji Kiyokawa), gives the pot to his yon Yasu,
to raise goldfish in, not knowing its actual value of course. Shichibei
likes to spend his time at an archery range/geisha house, but eventually
he runs foul of two other costumers (through no fault of his own) and they
kill him. Now the place's madame and her boyfriend/bouncer, one-eyed and
one-armed ronin Tange Sazen (Denjiro Okochi), pay a visit to Shichibei's
family to report his death ... and before they know it, they find
themselves stuck with Yasu and his pot. It's only now that Genzabaru
learns about the pot's actual value, and he promises his wife to go track
it down ... but then he delegates the job to Yokichi (Reisabaru Yamamoto)
- who also sells his services to Lord Yagyu - and spends his days at the
archery range/geisha house that Shichibei loved to visit instead, not
knowing that Yasu is actually the son of the trash collector he is looking
for and the pot he keeps his goldfish in is actually the pot that
triggered everything. Instead he makes friends with everybody in the place
... It's only eventually that Yokichi finds Shichibei's house, and upon
this Genzabaru feels he almost has his hands on the pot already - when his
wife orders him back because she has found out where he's spending his
time at, and she sends his students at the dojo out to handle the thing
instead (though they don't succeed). In the meantime, Lord Yagyu has
gone to drastic measures, he has offered to buy every pot with monkeys
painted on it for one ryo (way above its actual value) - this way he
figures he just has to get his hands on the right pot. Yasu on the other
hand throws his foster parents - Tange Sazen and the madame - into a
financial crisis after he wins a large amount of money from a boy at his
school, is robbed when he wants to take it back, and now his father
threatens to go to the police should he not get his money back. Running
out of options, Tange Sazen figures the only way to get money is to attack
a dojo and defeat everyone in there. Without knowing it, he attacks
Genzaburo's dojo, and very successfully, too, but when he is to fight the
master and figures it's Genzaburo, both men are less than thrilled about
this, Tange Sazen because he doesn't want to fight a friend, Genzaburo
because despite running a dojo he is not much of a fighter - so the two of
them make a deal: Tange Sazen lets Genzaburo win in exchange for the money
he needs. Sounds like a rotten deal for Genzaburo, but he's all for it,
because this way he can prove to his wife that his students are unfit to
find the pot and again go look for it himself. Of course instead of
looking for the pot, he returns to the archery range/geisha house of Tange
Sazen and madame. He has long figured out that Yasu's pot is actually the
pot in question, but refrains from telling it to his wife, because as long
as the pot remains lost, he can return to the place, once it's found he'd
be rich but without happiness. A nice and very humane period
comedy that wraps up its a tad blunt message - greed won't do you any good
- in a very entertaining little tale full of fun twists and turns that
range from the tragic to the hilarious, starting with the opbject of
everyone's affection (a cheap pot with monkeys painted onto it) itself,
and it's surprising journey from here to there - and despite the object is
so unremarkable in the first place, only forgetting about it finally
triggers a happy ending. Recommended, actually.
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