The Japanese, we are told again and again by overseas commentators, are honest to a fault. Anyone who has been here any length of time has experienced that honesty, starting with the convenience store clerk who runs after you to return some dropped loose change.
But, as Masaharu Take's two light comedies about the local antiques trade remind us, exceptions exist, especially when credulous collectors appear, ready for fleecing.
His chief scammers in the first 2018 film, "We Make Antiques!," were dealer Norio Koike (Kiichi Nakai) and potter Sasuke Noda (Kuranosuke Sasaki) who conspired to make and sell a fake tea bowl, ostensibly by famed 16th century tea master Sen no Rikyu, to a couple of distinguished-looking, black-hearted fraudsters, after which our heroes vowed to tread the straight-and-narrow.