Sakamoto's 'Sukiyaki' Returns to Screen as Tokyo Festival Opener

A new film titled Sukiyaki opens the 2026 Tokyo International Film Festival on Christmas Day. Directed by Takahisa Zeze, the drama examines the origins of a song that became a global commercial phenomenon and a symbol of Japan's postwar recovery. The project reunites on screen the three figures central to the track's history: composer Hachidai Nakamura, lyricist Rokusuke Ei, and singer Kyu Sakamoto.

The narrative centers on Nakamura, portrayed by Junichi Okada, who faced debt and addiction after a failed recital in the late 1950s. Rockabilly was overtaking jazz in popularity, prompting Nakamura to partner with Ei, a radio writer played by Tori Matsuzaka. Ei had never written song lyrics before this collaboration. Together, they created a rockabilly score for a 1959 Toho movie. Toho is also distributing the new 2026 film.

In 1961, the pair wrote Ue o Muite Aruko, which translates to I look upwards as I walk. Nakamura blended traditional Japanese scales, jazz chords, and American pop influences for the melody. Ei's lyrics drew on the disappointment of the Anpo protests, which failed to stop a security treaty keeping a large U.S. military presence in Japan. The upward gaze in the lyrics served to keep tears from falling.

Sakamoto, played by Taiga Nakano, received the sheet music only two hours before the song's premiere at Tokyo's Sankei Hall on July 21, 1961. Unrehearsed, he shifted the minor key ad lib, performed the four-beat song as an eight-beat piece, and entered a beat late. These deviations mimicked the Japanese balladeers he admired and added layers to the track's distinctiveness. The single sold 300,000 copies in Japan between November 1961 and January 1962, ranking as the Music Life best domestic song during that period.

The song reached international audiences through Louis Benjamin of Pye Records, who visited Japan in 1962. He secured an instrumental version for Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, titled Sukiyaki, which entered the British top ten in February 1963. Accounts differ on the title's origin, with some claiming Benjamin named it after eating the hotpot dish in Tokyo and others saying Ball chose it because the original Japanese title was difficult for listeners. After instrumental covers in the U.S. failed to gain traction, Capitol Records released the original Japanese version under the Sukiyaki title on May 3, 1963.

The track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in June 1963. This made Sakamoto the only Japanese artist to achieve a U.S. number one spot at that time, and the song the first from Asia to do so. The record sold more than 13 million copies globally, charting at number one in countries ranging from Australia to Norway. Toshiba reissued the single in Japan with the title rendered in katakana and a packaging legend reading global hit!

The song's success coincided with double-digit economic growth in Japan, where companies like Sony and Toyota were establishing global brands. For a national psyche still affected by wartime defeat, the worldwide appeal of the track served as a source of pride. International cover versions followed in Chinese, Spanish, German, and French. In 1981, Janice-Marie Johnson of the group A Taste of Honey released an R&B version that topped the Billboard R&B chart and reached number three on the Hot 100. Johnson contacted Ei in Japan for a rough English translation of the lyrics.

Sakamoto died in the Japan Air Lines flight 123 crash on August 12, 1985. The Boeing 747 suffered mechanical failure 12 minutes after takeoff from Tokyo to Osaka. The pilots kept the aircraft airborne for approximately 30 minutes before it struck a mountainside, killing 520 of the 524 people on board. It remains the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in aviation history. The song was sung by 71 celebrities in a television commercial following the 2011 disaster and appeared in the 2011 Ghibli film From Up on Poppy Hill. The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra performed it at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021.