Sakamoto’s 1963 hit opens Tokyo film festival with new drama

A new drama about the making of a global pop hit will open the 2026 Tokyo International Film Festival. The film, titled Sukiyaki, is directed by Takahisa Zeze and focuses on the 1960s song that became a symbol of Japan’s postwar recovery.

The story centers on composer Hachidai Nakamura, played by Junichi Okada, and his partnership with lyricist Rokusuke Ei, played by Tori Matsuzaka. Singer Kyu Sakamoto, portrayed by Taiga Nakano, is the third key figure. The film depicts how their collaboration turned a local tune into a worldwide phenomenon.

In 1959, Nakamura and Ei began working together on a rockabilly score for a Toho movie. They had not intended to write a hit single. By 1961, they had composed “Ue o Muite Aruko,” a track blending traditional Japanese scales, jazz chords, and American pop influences. Ei’s lyrics reflected the sadness of failed protests against a U.S. military presence in Japan.

Sakamoto received the sheet music only two hours before his debut performance at Tokyo’s Sankei Hall on July 21, 1961. Unrehearsed, he altered the tempo and key, creating a unique delivery. The song became the best domestic hit in Japan from November 1961 to January 1962, selling 300,000 copies.

British producer Louis Benjamin heard the track in 1962 and gave it to Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. Their instrumental version, titled “Sukiyaki,” reached the British top ten in February 1963. Capitol Records later released the original Japanese recording under the same name. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in June 1963.

The single sold more than 13 million copies worldwide. It remained the only U.S. No. 1 by a Japanese artist until BTS’s “Dynamite” in 2020. In 1981, A Taste of Honey, led by Janice-Marie Johnson, released a version that reached No. 3 on the Hot 100. Johnson had contacted Ei for an English translation of the lyrics.

Sakamoto died in 1985 when Japan Air Lines flight 123 crashed after a mechanical failure, killing 520 of the 524 people on board. The song has been used in memorial services and a 2011 commercial following the Great East Japan Earthquake. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra performed it at the 2021 Olympic closing ceremony.

The film opens in Japan on Christmas Day. It reunites the on-screen trio who, according to the source material, Sakamoto had expressed a desire to bring back together before his death.