TOKYO POP
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1988 Jeff Meyer
SYNOPSIS: We have the tale of a young woman from L.A., attempting to break into rock singing, who decides to visit a friend in Japan when she hears that they love American rock 'n roll there. Upon arriving, she finds that her friend has left and that she must break into show biz on her own. On the way, she meets a (barely) English-speaking lead singer for a band trying to get a hit. They're looking for a gaijin singer as a "gimmick" to take them to stardom, but then she and he start to get interested in one another...do I have to spell it out, gang? This is a USDA-approved romantic comedy.
TOKYO POP is one of those two-handed films. On the one hand.... Carrie Hamilton has got a lot of screen appeal, and it works through most of the film. Yutaka Tadokoro plays the lead singer in a very likable manner; he is able to switch between a rather shy manner around Hamilton and a typical rocker with the rest of his band. The film makes some interesting points about the fleeting nature of media fame, both in Japan and the United States. And you feel fairly good when you leave the theater.
On the other hand.... It all gets just too precious at points. If you can't figure out what the wrap-up is a half-hour before the end of the show, go hit the Video Palace and check out every other Lover/Rocker films. There's not much subtlety here (though the camerawork's good), and it needs it. There is also a *lot* of mugging in this film: by Hamilton (it appears that both Carol Burnett and Martin Sheen have somehow begot physical clones of themselves); by Tadokoro (his puppy-dog act at points is just too likeable; he gets downright plush, like a Gund doll); and by the film, where the camera stays a bit too long on Americanized Japanese, as if it was playing to the American audiences specifically. Perhaps this isn't "strictly" a foreign film (it was co- produced in America...it uses sub-titles when needed), but I like to think that a director is making comments about his country and his culture from his own perceptions, and not pandering to the tastes of a market outside his country. Though I suppose it could be argued that directors here pander to markets *in* our own country. So much for that argument...
Anyway, a good $3.50 movie, but I wonder about authenticity.
PS to rec.arts.comics readers: Chris Claremont would *love* this movie. His tongue would fall out, he'd roll over on his back and drool uncontrollably over his beard. Then he'd make both characters mutants and put them in next month's X-MEN.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
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