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6 Tokyo movies that get it all wrong
Hollywood isn't generally known for historical accuracy, but these six Tokyo-based movies hit new highs in lows when describing the Big Mikan
Rinko Kikuchi's depiction of deaf-mute Chieko Wataya earned her a nomination for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category -- a field that does not take cultural accuracy into consideration.You Only Live Twice (1967)
Plot: To prevent World War III, James Bond trails a pair of missing spacecraft to Japan via the neon lights of Tokyo’s Ginza district.
Required cliché: 'Bond-san' gets a bathhouse scrub down from multiple female attendants while enduring cracks about English women and his chest hair.
Least plausible moment: Kimono-clad female spies clutching designer handbags with miniature walkie-talkies lead Bond to an ultramodern railway car that doubles as the mobile HQ of the Japanese secret service.
Digging into local culture: The super-spy turns down his usual martini to imbibe some local sake.
Tokyo is … a science fiction super city where the past, present and future exist simultaneously… and sexily.
The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)
Plot: Permanently hovering somewhere between 'drunk' and 'hung over,' leisure-suited Tony Curtis aims to get rich quick by sending "a bunch of ragamuffin American kids to Tokyo to defend the national pastime." Batter up.
Required cliché: Tween thug Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) romances a local kimono-clad girl who appears to have dropped in from the Meiji Restoration.
Least plausible moment: Characters enter the gates of Hanazono temple in Shinjuku and emerge minutes later across town on the streets of Asakusa.
Digging into local culture: Curtis and a rival coach nearly trade blows during a sightseeing trek to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Tokyo is … a giant Little League baseball diamond.
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989)
Plot: At the height of the Japan-bashing '80s, a Japanese businessman’s habit of sexually harassing women on Tokyo commuter trains puts him on a fateful collision course with cranky, racist LA cop Charles Bronson.
Required cliché: Unfair trade practices put Charles Bronson in the grips of yellow terror: "Take the Japanese for instance. They’re buying hotels, office buildings, golf courses. They’re taking over!"
Least plausible moment: Dressed-up American locations fill in for hostess clubs and palatial houses, complete with waterfalls and rock gardens. One sequence begins on location in Shibuya as passengers make for the Inokashira line … then emerge from San Francisco’s MUNI subway where extras do their best to conjure up a hellish Tokyo rush hour experience while boarding a Bay Area train bound for Kanda.
Digging into local culture: Caught red-handed with a porno manga, the salaryman explains to his wife, "These are adult comic books…men read them on the train and in the office."
Tokyo is … a hotbed of forbidden desires where everyone speaks good English.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Plot: All-American teenage auto freak Lucas Black dodges juvenile hall by running away to -- as the title card says -- "Tokyo, Japan."
Required cliché: Calling a foreigner a 'gaijin' is the most devastating insult imaginable.
Least plausible moment: Lucas dons a blazer and enrolls in an international school in Shibuya where the lunch menu consists of expensive sushi platters. That’s because everyone who attends class there either has familial ties to the yakuza underworld or maintains an equally thrilling lifestyle as a drift racer.
Digging into local culture: As cartoonish as "Drift" gets, it may accurately present a Tokyo more racially diverse than most movies do, such as the scene in which Bow Wow (of Lil’ Bow Wow fame) offers some hot models a Snickers candy bar in spoken Japanese.
Tokyo is … a multistory parking garage where you can race and party all night long.
Babel (2006)
Plot: In one story of this cinematic triptych, a deaf schoolgirl played by Rinko Kikuchi employs extreme methods in a bid for an ultimately futile sexual conquest.
Required cliché: Schoolgirl uniform minus panties.
Least plausible moment: Shibuya’s J-Pop Cafe is not actually a cross between the "90210" Peach Pit diner, a video arcade and a dance club frequented by hormone-crazed high school kids like the ones in the film. In reality, middle-aged musical acts and card-trick magicians tend to fill up the cafe's entertainment roster.
Digging into local culture: Japan's favorite leading man Koji Yakusho gets some face time as Dad.
Tokyo is … full of extremely horny young women on drugs.
The Ramen Girl (2008)
Plot: Abandoned by her boyfriend in Tokyo, a high-strung Brittany Murphy wanders into a mom and pop ramen shop in hysterics, falls asleep on the floor and becomes possessed with the desire to master the art of making noodles.
Required cliché: Most of Murphy’s interaction with the understandably grouchy ramen shop staff consists of her speaking in loud, stilted English and shouting, "I don’t understand you!" whenever they talk back.
Least plausible moment: Ramen alters the minds of those who consume it, producing rivers of tears or fits of laughter, depending on the mood of the person who cooks it. Well, I guess it's called 'magical realism' for a reason.
Digging into local culture: A soundtrack made up of lilting shakuhachi flutes and twangy koto that’s better suited to "Memoirs of a Geisha."
Tokyo is … a forgiving place where foreigners are free to indulge their inner Iron Chef.
Required cliché: 'Bond-san' gets a bathhouse scrub down from multiple female attendants while enduring cracks about English women and his chest hair.
Least plausible moment: Kimono-clad female spies clutching designer handbags with miniature walkie-talkies lead Bond to an ultramodern railway car that doubles as the mobile HQ of the Japanese secret service.
Digging into local culture: The super-spy turns down his usual martini to imbibe some local sake.
Tokyo is … a science fiction super city where the past, present and future exist simultaneously… and sexily.
The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)
Required cliché: Tween thug Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) romances a local kimono-clad girl who appears to have dropped in from the Meiji Restoration.
Least plausible moment: Characters enter the gates of Hanazono temple in Shinjuku and emerge minutes later across town on the streets of Asakusa.
Digging into local culture: Curtis and a rival coach nearly trade blows during a sightseeing trek to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Tokyo is … a giant Little League baseball diamond.
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989)
Required cliché: Unfair trade practices put Charles Bronson in the grips of yellow terror: "Take the Japanese for instance. They’re buying hotels, office buildings, golf courses. They’re taking over!"
Least plausible moment: Dressed-up American locations fill in for hostess clubs and palatial houses, complete with waterfalls and rock gardens. One sequence begins on location in Shibuya as passengers make for the Inokashira line … then emerge from San Francisco’s MUNI subway where extras do their best to conjure up a hellish Tokyo rush hour experience while boarding a Bay Area train bound for Kanda.
Digging into local culture: Caught red-handed with a porno manga, the salaryman explains to his wife, "These are adult comic books…men read them on the train and in the office."
Tokyo is … a hotbed of forbidden desires where everyone speaks good English.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Required cliché: Calling a foreigner a 'gaijin' is the most devastating insult imaginable.
Least plausible moment: Lucas dons a blazer and enrolls in an international school in Shibuya where the lunch menu consists of expensive sushi platters. That’s because everyone who attends class there either has familial ties to the yakuza underworld or maintains an equally thrilling lifestyle as a drift racer.
Digging into local culture: As cartoonish as "Drift" gets, it may accurately present a Tokyo more racially diverse than most movies do, such as the scene in which Bow Wow (of Lil’ Bow Wow fame) offers some hot models a Snickers candy bar in spoken Japanese.
Tokyo is … a multistory parking garage where you can race and party all night long.
Babel (2006)
Required cliché: Schoolgirl uniform minus panties.
Least plausible moment: Shibuya’s J-Pop Cafe is not actually a cross between the "90210" Peach Pit diner, a video arcade and a dance club frequented by hormone-crazed high school kids like the ones in the film. In reality, middle-aged musical acts and card-trick magicians tend to fill up the cafe's entertainment roster.
Digging into local culture: Japan's favorite leading man Koji Yakusho gets some face time as Dad.
Tokyo is … full of extremely horny young women on drugs.
The Ramen Girl (2008)
Required cliché: Most of Murphy’s interaction with the understandably grouchy ramen shop staff consists of her speaking in loud, stilted English and shouting, "I don’t understand you!" whenever they talk back.
Least plausible moment: Ramen alters the minds of those who consume it, producing rivers of tears or fits of laughter, depending on the mood of the person who cooks it. Well, I guess it's called 'magical realism' for a reason.
Digging into local culture: A soundtrack made up of lilting shakuhachi flutes and twangy koto that’s better suited to "Memoirs of a Geisha."
Tokyo is … a forgiving place where foreigners are free to indulge their inner Iron Chef.
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