Sukiyaki drama opens Tokyo festival

The 2026 Tokyo International Film Festival will open with a new feature titled Sukiyaki, directed by Takahisa Zeze. The project adapts the true story of a 1960s pop song that evolved from a local rockabilly track into a global commercial phenomenon.

The narrative follows three central figures in the creation of the track. Composer and jazz pianist Hachidai Nakamura is portrayed by Junichi Okada. Lyricist Rokusuke Ei is played by Tori Matsuzaka. Singer Kyu Sakamoto, who performed the hit, is depicted by Taiga Nakano. The film is being distributed by Toho, the same studio that commissioned the original 1959 movie score that launched Nakamura and Ei's collaboration.

The path to the final recording was complicated by professional setbacks and personal struggles. Nakamura faced debt and addiction after a failed recital during the shift from jazz to rockabilly. He and Ei, a radio writer with no prior songwriting experience, were hired to write a score for a Toho film in 1959. That partnership led to the creation of the song in 1961.

The lyrics for the track, titled Ue o Muite Aruko, which translates to I look upwards as I walk, were inspired by political frustration. Ei drew on the failure of mass protests to block a security treaty between Tokyo and Washington. The treaty maintained a large American military presence in Japan. The act of looking upward in the song serves as a metaphor for holding back tears.

The recording process at Tokyo's Sankei Hall on July 21, 1961, was marked by last-minute changes. Sakamoto received the sheet music only two hours before the premiere. He performed without rehearsal, drifting into a minor key and altering the rhythmic structure. He sang the four-beat composition in an eight-beat style and entered the beat late. These improvisations gave the performance a distinctive quality.

The single was a domestic success in Japan, selling 300,000 copies and topping Music Life's domestic charts from November 1961 to January 1962. International interest began when Louis Benjamin of Britain's Pye Records visited Japan in 1962. He passed the melody to Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. Their instrumental version, titled Sukiyaki, reached the British top ten in February 1963.

Capitol Records in the United States initially had limited success with covers by Billy Vaughn and Kenny Ball. The label then released the original Japanese recording under the Sukiyaki title on May 3, 1963. The track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in June 1963. This achievement made Sakamoto the only Japanese artist to hold a U.S. No. 1 position at that time.

The song became the first from Asia to reach the top of the U.S. charts. No other Asian artist achieved that milestone until BTS released Dynamite in 2020. The single sold more than 13 million copies worldwide and topped charts in countries ranging from Australia to Norway. Toshiba reissued the single in Japan with a new cover featuring the legend global hit! to reflect the song's international status during a period of rapid economic growth.

The track has remained a cultural touchstone in Japan. It was played at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021 and appeared in the Ghibli film From Up on Poppy Hill. The song is also played at the annual memorial service for Sakamoto, who died on August 12, 1985, in a Japan Air Lines crash. The new film Sukiyaki opens in Japanese theaters on Christmas Day.