visas & virtue (send again)

[Alan Kita]

It was like a fad in Japan, probably as the 50th year "anniversary" of
WWII was approaching, or something else, but the Japanese in Japan had a
somwhat interest in learning more about their American and Brazilian
cousins.

There was a film called "Horizon" I think in English.  The director (?)
had relatives who lived in the U.S. and "returned" to Japan.  So his
film was about that.  Since this was done in Japanese, there were two
"funny" things about the film, although at the time the film came out,
many of us were horrified.
1)  It was done by Japanese actors, and it took place in the U.S., so
the English was "not authentic."
2)  Then to approximate the English-Japanese speech by the Nisei, such
as my father and his kin, they adapted a kind of Japanese that sounded,
well, childish.  They should have had an American Japanese advisor on
the film.  Because not only was the English bad, but the parts in
Japanese was bad, too.  I guess the actors have never heard Japanese
spoken by a Japanese American that knew Japanese!

If anyone can tell me the Japanese name of the film and the director.

Another film was a Kurosawa film that had Richard Gere as a
half-Japanese son learning his roots.  Of course, Asian American actors
were upset with the casting of Gere; Japanese Americans were upset
because Gere didn't look anymore Japanese; and I'm not sure what mixed
Japanese thought about it --probably because it was hardly shown in the
U.S.

Nowadays, when you think of the following actors as having Japanese
grandparents - Phoebe Cates, Dean Cain, Rob Schneider and Amy Hill --
why couldn't Richard Gere have a Japanese ancestor.

Alan Kita