How an Israeli kidnapping comedy sold a million tickets

Saving Shuli-San was set for a June release, but the war with Iran made United King Films, the movie’s distributor, postpone the much-awaited film.

Saving Shuli-San, the new Israeli comedy film released in theaters on July 17, just sold its one millionth ticket on August 11 – and shows no signs of slowing down, which doesn’t surprise Ben Bachar, its director, one bit.

Asked whether he felt audiences were especially eager to see a comedy after nearly two years of war, which has had such a tragic impact on so many lives, Bachar said, “In one month, we managed to make an entire country laugh. Even though this is a time when only pain accompanies our hearts… I think people are always eager for comedy.”

Saving Shuli-San is the sequel to the 2021 film Saving Shuli, which Bachar directed and which also quickly sold more than a million tickets. “The first film came out after a year and a half of COVID, and we broke box-office records,” he noted.

Saving Shuli-San was set for a June release, but the war with Iran made United King Films, the movie’s distributor, postpone the much-awaited film.

Both movies star the Mah Kashur comedy trio – Tzion Baruch, Shalom Michaelshwilli, and Asi Israelof – in the story of the search for Shuli (David Shaul), the son of one of the trio, who gets kidnapped in both movies. In the first, he was taken by a drug cartel in Colombia, but in the new film, he is held prisoner by a gang of not-really-so-scary yakuza in Tokyo, who commandeer him to make his trademark blend of Yemenite and Japanese cooking for them, and he creates dishes such as jachnun-sushi.

Bachar admitted that it wasn’t easy to make a film about a kidnapping while hostages are still being held in Gaza. “It was very scary for us, afterOctober 7… to touch those subjects. And we decided that this time, he’s going to be kidnapped but in a way that something good happens to him. Because suddenly he can cook [for the gangsters] and he becomes a star chef. So, it’s like saying, okay, it’s a kidnapping movie, but an optimistic one, with a happy end… It was a way for us to give a bit of hope.”

The movie is classic sketch comedy, with the three guys doing the shtick their audience craves, and lots of shaggy Israeli humor and slapstick, as well as many fish-out-of-water, Israelis-in-Japan gags. In the first film, they tried to pay Shuli’s ransom through the popular-in-Israel app Bit, and in this one, which was filmed well into the current war, they remind each other not to show off their Israeli identity on a crowded Japanese street, although each has either a star of David necklace, an Israeli flag, or an IDF logo on his back.

One big surprise for viewers will be the appearance of a young female Japanese character, Batsheva, who is also searching for Shuli and who guides them on their way. She is played, to great comic effect, by the international model Emma Medding, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an Australian father, who grew up in Israel.

“I don’t believe in acting; I believe in casting, and I thought it was a very good casting decision to bring her along,” said Bachar.

With her nasal voice, slangy Hebrew, and deadpan delivery, coupled with her willowy Japanese silhouette, she often steals the show from the guys. Medding grew up speaking Hebrew, Japanese, and English, and in a recent interview with Reshet, she spoke about how on October 7, 2023, although she was modeling abroad, she headed home as soon as possible to report for IDF reserve duty.

The movie was shot in just 17 days in Japan. Bachar, who spent years directing sketches on Eretz Nehederet, the television comedy show that is Israel’s version of Saturday Night Live, said he began working with the trio 25 years ago. “So I knew just what they can do.” He was able to keep up the pace thanks to his television training, as well as his work directing commercials and an early job editing news clips. He also directed the 2016 comedy The Last Band in Lebanon, about an army music group left behind in Lebanon when the IDF pulled out in 2000, which is kidnapped by drug-dealing Hezbollah fighters.

The making of a comedy film

“I know how to keep up a quick tempo, you know, you just don’t stop. People said, ‘How can you make a movie out of the trio? It will be just one long sketch.’ But the movie is a mix of genres, it’s like drama and comedy and action together… It’s a balance that is helpful to the audience, too, because it’s hard to laugh all the time. You laugh for a bit, and then there’s some drama, and you can sit back, and then later you laugh again. It’s less than 90 minutes but we get a lot of story in,” he said.

He credits Saving Shuli-San’s screenwriter, Ori Katz, with perfecting the mix of genres. “Ori is also a chef,” he said, explaining that Katz came up with the ideas for the hybrid Yemenite-Japanese cuisine Shauli prepares in the movie.

Asked if he agreed with the Hollywood phrase, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” he laughed. “I think comedy is very hard to make, to make you feel emotion, like sadness, that’s easier… But the main thing is we had a great ensemble, and so we have something special in the movie.”

He worked with a stunt director on some martial arts sequences. “I love Tarantino, so many scenes were like playing with Kill Bill,” said Bachar.

Bachar feels that the Japanese-Israeli divide is at the heart of the film’s appeal. “I think there’s something universal about connecting different cultures. This culture clash is interesting for everyone. I don’t think there are any cultures more different than Israel and Japan. They’re opposite extremes. The trio is very wild, very fast. Nothing is politically correct… Even without knowing any language, you can just get it.”

Bachar said his team was currently working on a version of the movie with Japanese subtitles and preparing to release the movie there, including screening it for Japanese focus groups, to see what jokes work and which need some tweaking.

“We worked with a local Japanese crew, and they really went crazy over the movie. They enjoyed the story,” he said. “There’s a very childlike side to Japanese culture, and they really enjoy broad comedy. They liked the slapstick and the characters. Although they didn’t get everything, they were really interested in it. They asked a lot of questions. Who knows? Maybe it will also be a success in Japan.”