Koji Yakusho article

[John Dougill]

I've written a simple piece for the Kansai Time Out, an amateur's
perspective.  Could I run it by members of the list to see if I've made any
howlers or debatable points.  I'd be glad of any input.  Thanks....

JD
Kyoto


Anyone interested in contemporary Japanese cinema will be familiar with the
name of Koji Yakusho.  A former civil servant (hence his psuedonym
Yakusho), he's appeared in several of the top Japanese films in recent
years.  Such is his fame that he is currently appearing in two different
advertisements on television - one for Kirin Ishibori and the other for a
Life Insurance company.
	1997 was the annus mirabilis for Yakusho with no fewer than four
remarkable films in one year.  'Shall We Dance?' is the best-known, an
entertaining look at a salaryman's passion for a dance teacher whom he sees
while commuting one evening.  Like a goddess on high, she promises relief
from the soulessness of his salaryman lifestyle.  Yakusho plays the main
lead with a fine sensitivity, hesitant to enter the dance-school and
nervously gazing at the object of his affection when he should be learning
his steps.  His awkwardness is so characteristic of the salaryman that many
Japanese in the audience were laughing in self-recognition when I first saw
it.  This is a joyful film, full of eccentric characters (watch out
especially for the wig-wearing Naoto Takenaka), and proof positive that the
Japanese have a sense of humour.
	Like 'Shall We Dance?', 'Unagi' (The Eel) too won international
attention and was even awarded the Palme d'Or prize at Cannes.  It portrays
another side of Japan, those who live on the margins.  Yakusho here plays a
guilt-ridden murderer who emerges from his spell in prison cowed and
withdrawn.  His pet eel provides his only true friend, but he is eventually
able to reclaim his true humanity through the love of a woman.  The eel
plays a symbolic part in the film as Yamashita's unconscious guilt, though
in a sense it is superfluous since Yakusho's acting conveys the burden of
his past through his deadpan downbeaten mien.  Somewhat darker in nature
than 'Shall We Dance?, the film is similarly filled with eccentric
characters and flashes of humour while at the same time suggesting
something of the murky depths of human nature.
	The third of Yakusho's 1997 offerings, 'Shitsurakuen' (Lost
Paradise) won no international fame, but it was a cult in Japan, second
only to Mononoke Hime in box office takings that year. It shows Yakusho in
quite a different role - that of the passionate lover. He plays a married
middle-aged book editor whose affair with another woman spins out of
control.  Job, marriage, even life itself is jettisoned as the couple are
carried away on a tide of sensuality.  The sexual intensity of the film is
underlined by the manner of the couple's death - 'Rather be lovers in Hell
than alone in Heaven' runs the slogan of the film.  It's all a long way
from the world of 'Shall We Dance?'
	Last but not least in Yakusho's remarkable year was Bounce Kogals
(Bouncing Young Girls) which focuses on a group of Tokyo high-school girls
making money out of date clubs and 'compensated dating.'  Yakusho here
takes a small but key part as a yakuza-type club owner who takes the girls
to task for ruining his business - not to mention their own lives.  His
portrayal of the sinister bullying father figure shows the remarkably wide
range of his acting ability.  The film is remarkable for capturing the
vibrancy of Tokyo's 24 hour lifestyle and shows a genuine understanding of
the 'kogals' while attacking the money values of Japan.  Thoughtful yet
action-filled, it is directed by Masato Harada, the man behind this year's
attention-getting film - 'Jubaku' (Spellbound).  Guess who's starring in it
- Koji Yakusho.

(595 words)