Japanese film and the political right

[Yeh Yueh Yu]

Mark asked:

A better question might be "What is the place of politics in Japanese
society?" When I arrived in Japan in 1975, politics still mattered to
more
than what Gore Vidal once called the chattering classes. Shunto was
still a
big deal to millions of ordinary workers (even I, as a member of the
Sony
LL teachers' labor union, donned my red headband when negotiating with
management). Radical student groups were still fighting it out with lead
pipes. My students -- mostly college kids from Kichijoji -- would corner
me
for earnest discussions about "America's responsibility for the atomic
bombings."

This fevor, which was waning even then, all but vanished years ago. How
many Japanese filmmakers under the age of forty (perhaps I should say
fifty) ever joined a political study group, marched in a demonstation,
or
otherwise took an active interest in political change (other than
casting a
ballot against the LDP every couple of years or so)? Damned few, I would
imagine. The will may have been there, but the zeitgeist hasn't been
right.

Pertaining to this, I'd like to solicit some reactions to "Odoru
Daisosasen" (Bayside Shakedown) which I saw yesterday in Hong Kong. 
I'll go first:
1.  The film appears to be a skewering of hidebound corporate culture as
it persists in the Yokohama vs. Metro police departments.  The opening
"abduction" of a police commissioner is a hilarious sendup of kiss-ass
gerontocracy.
2.  Three generations: these old farts are contrasted with irreverent
hero/heroines (Aoshima) of the dept. who maintain some idealism about
police work, solving crimes, helping victims, dispensing justice. 
Aoshima and co., however, are also contrasted with the real villains,
the wired, deracinated teenagers who can't function and therefore wreak
havoc on the real world of the street.  Generations are divided between
the doddering old guard bureaucrats (elite and local); the dynamic young
guard more excited about solving crimes than collecting receipts; and
the blank, sociopathic "aliens" who seem completely outside Japanese
society, but b/c of its ridigity, techno-fetishism, and hierarchy are,
Frankenstein-like, products of it.
	Crossovers and parallels between these generations give the movie its
social interest:  Aoshima soliciting oracular hints from the psychotic
surgical murderer "Teddy" (cf. Silence of the Lambs); clear parallels
between the Otaku kidnappers and the detached, top-level bureaucrats
calling shots from their computer screens.
3. Resolution: the convalescent Aoshima continues to identify w/ the
elite Muroi, replaying a similar "pact" between the older cop, who finds
the kidnappers the old-fashioned way, and the rescued commissioner.  The
movie therefore advances an ideology of proper place worthy of
Chushingura, totally undermining its initial anti-bureaucracy tone.  The
solution is to scapegoat  the "aliens" and form common cause between
babyboomers nearing retirement and genki GenX'rs.  The final tone is one
of nostalgia.
	Against all evidence to the contrary, the young heroes continue to
believe in the system, b/c the system is so rotten that believing in it
seems subversive and hip.  "Aliens" make this possible.  Rather than
fighting the power, currying favor w/ the generation that controls it.


Where is the Japanese Tim Robbins when we need him?
Tim Robbins?!  This is a good example of the smug favor-currying
exemplified by Odoru Daisosasen.  More than this, Japanese film needs
"Bulworth."  But I am with Mark:  "Bounce" and "Kamikaze Taxi" both pack
a punch.

Darrell Davis
Hong Kong