Many Japanese people are now nostalgic for the 1970s and ¡¯80s, when the economy was booming and the culture had an exciting vitality and creativity. Think Pac-Man, Walkman and the ¡°Sasori¡± action series starring Meiko Kaji as a fierce-eyed female prisoner out for vengeance against an evil patriarchy.

But as Taichi Kimura shows so rousingly and entertainingly in ¡°Fujiko,¡± his dramedy about a striving single mom, the era was hardly an easy one for women.

Though the women¡¯s liberation movement was then on the rise ¡ª the scrappy title protagonist (Yuki Katayama) even takes part in a raucous all-woman demonstration ¡ª male chauvinists viewed a stubbornly independent woman like Fujiko with alarm and disdain.