Tokyo Film Festival Opens With Drama on 13 Million Copy Global Hit

The 2026 Tokyo International Film Festival begins with a drama that examines the origins of one of the 20th century’s most recognizable pop songs.

Titled Sukiyaki, the film directed by Takahisa Zeze opens at the festival before its general release in Japan on Christmas Day. The movie stars Junichi Okada as composer Hachidai Nakamura, Tori Matsuzaka as lyricist Rokusuke Ei, and Taiga Nakano as singer Kyu Sakamoto. It depicts the collaboration that produced the 1961 track, which Nakamura wrote after a failed recital left him in debt and struggling with addiction while the jazz scene waned.

The song, originally titled Ue o Muite Aruko, was created for a 1959 Toho movie. Ei wrote melancholic lyrics inspired by the Anpo protests against a Tokyo-Washington security treaty. Nakamura blended traditional Japanese scales, jazz chords, and U.S. pop influences. Sakamoto first performed the song at Tokyo’s Sankei Hall on July 21, 1961. He received the sheet music only two hours before the premiere. Unrehearsed, he altered the rhythm, shifted to a minor key, and sang off-beat, choices that defined the track's unique sound.

The single sold 300,000 copies in Japan between November 1961 and January 1962. Its international breakthrough occurred in 1962 when Louis Benjamin of Pye Records visited Japan. He licensed the melody for Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen to record an instrumental version. That track entered the British top ten in February 1963 under the title Sukiyaki, a name derived either from a dish Benjamin ate or a word Ball knew.

Capitol Records later released the original Japanese version in the United States on May 3, 1963. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June and stayed there for three weeks. This made Sakamoto the only Japanese artist to achieve a U.S. No. 1 at the time, a record that stood until BTS released Dynamite in 2020. The song also topped charts in Australia and Norway. Worldwide sales eventually exceeded 13 million copies.

The track’s legacy persisted through cultural shifts. In 1981, A Taste of Honey used Ei’s English translation to record a cover that reached number three on the Hot 100. Lyrics from that version appeared in the 1985 hip-hop hit La Di Da Di. After Sakamoto died in the JAL Flight 123 crash on August 12, 1985, the song became a memorial staple. It resurfaced during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, was featured in a Studio Ghibli film that same year, and was performed by Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra at the 2021 Olympics closing ceremony.

The film reunites the three figures central to the song’s creation, a trio Sakamoto had said he wanted to bring back together shortly before his death.