Tarantino stars in new Softbank TV commercial

I wonder who got the bigger trailer: QT or the dog? (Video from YouTube user ikasama117CM.)

Quentin Tarantino -- the incredibly gifted actor of Destiny Turns on the Radio and well-respected director of films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill -- has become the latest crazy plot twist in Softbank's white-dog "Otosan" ad series.

For those who haven't been following this very popular television campaign, the ads involve a family where the father is a white Hokkaido-ken dog, the older brother is an African-American and the uncle is some manner of marine mammal. (Don't ask for an explanation. Elementary school students think it's hilarious, and that's all that matters.)

Mr. Tarantino plays "Uncle Tara" and offers a schlocky performance on par with the Japanese entertainment world's high standards of bad acting. He introduces himself, and in some versions says "Samurai spirit-a!" -- an incorrect attempt at putting the English phrase into the Japanese sound system. Thanks to Softbank's new dog-shaped speaker phone, we hear Uncle Tara's blond American wife scream at QT to come home, at which point he bows to the speakerphone and shows a honorable sense of humility.

We don't know what the message is either, but we can safely assume that Tarantino has checked off the box for "star in crazy Japanese TV commercial" on his master "To Do Before I Die" list.

W. David Marx is CNNGo's Tokyo City Editor. Originally hailing from the American South, David studied East Asian Studies in New England and then worked for the magazine Tokion in the Lower East Side. After moving to Tokyo in 2003, he has completed a M.A. in Consumer Behavior, worked for an ad agency, written freelance for magazines such as GQ, Brutus, Weekly Diamond, and Nylon, founded numerous niche blogs, and recorded two albums on New York-based indie labels.

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