They all look the same...

mark schilling schill
Tue Aug 31 11:35:49 EDT 2004


> I'm not so sure that they're setting themselves up for
> a fall in this market in the least.  I've never known
> the Japanese to go see these foreign films about Japan
> with the expectation, or even the hope, of seeing
> themselves accurately represented.  Rather, they go
> out of curiosity to see exactly HOW they've been
> misrepresented, and I think that curiosity factor will
> play out just as easily here as it did with, say, a
> monstrosity like Pearl Harbor.

They didn't go to "see themselves misrepresented" -- the large female
audience went to see a love story.
Chalk up the success of the film here (Y6.88 billion gross) to clever
marketing.


Besides which, much of
> the target audience here (you know, those people who
> spend their lives in rapt, luminous communion with
> their cell phones) know about as much about geisha as
> they do about Hegel.  I mean, if they can swallow Tom
> Cruise getting all chummy with the Emperor, surely
> they can swallow this?

They didn't necessarily "swallow Tom Cruise getting all chummy with the
Emperor" -- but they were genuinely moved by the film. Did you see it with a
Japanese audience? I did -- at a press screening at Warners attended mainly
by hard-bitten industry types. Middle-aged salarymen were wiping the tears
from their eyes after the lights went up -- not smirking with scorn at the
historical inaccuriacies -- with which Japanese samurai dramas are rife,
incidentally.

> As far as star power goes, as long as Watanabe is
> there to fill out the bill, the young women will come.
>  Zhang Ziyi is very popular in Japan at the moment,
> and has even been singled out to represent the
> quintessence of Asian womanhood in
> the(Japanese-produced and oh-so-subtly-racist) Asience
> commercials--you know, the ones where the ghastly
> Western models sulk as Ziyi prances around the stage.
> As long as she's on the bill, the young men will come.

The big target is obviously the female demographic -- and given the
audiences for other recent Showa-era period dramas, I would say women over
25 (or to be safe, over 35) rather than under. Watanabe will certainly be a
draw and, if Zhang Ziyi were the only Chinese actress in the main cast, I'd
say why not? But three? Teenagers may not give a toss -- but older women?
I'm not talking about raging xenophobes, but ordinary folks who have certain
proprietary feelings towards certain things Japanese. Enough said!

Sorry to drag in another sumo comparison, but the popularity of the sport
has plunged since the last strong Japanese yokozuna -- Takanohana -- 
resigned and the foreign contingent, led by Asashoryu, took over. Again,
enough said.

One final comment -- nearly every "set in Japan" Hollywood film has
disappointed at the Japanese box office, going back to the feature-length
version of "Shogun," which famously flopped here in 1980. (I was there -- in
an empty theater in Shinjuku.)
Mr. Baseball? An easy out. Rising Son? Sank like a stone. Black Rain? A hit
with a distributor revenue of Y1.35 billion -- but mainly because of
audience interest in Matsuda Yusaku and, to a lesser extent, Takakura Ken.

Mark Schilling




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