Top Story: 16.December 2006
Japan Needs Strong Export Movies
Yesterday when I was watching the new trailers from Apple's Quicktime movie gallery, I must say I was disappointed. Naturally, most of the features were either European or Hollywood mainstream cinema. Aside the trailer of Babel, I could not see any movie I was even remotely interested. Most of the movies were just entertainment, typical conveyor-belt Hollywood junk. There was only few foreign movies, including the Babel (Mexico) and absolutely no Japanese titles at all.
To be a Japanese movie fan living outside Japan is certainly not fun. Although situation has improved a lot during the last decade, still most of the movies we get here in the Europe are either exotic fighting movies, or something strange, horrible or erotic enough to attract enough audience. Tasogare Seibei or Hotaru no Haka are good examples of "safe" export movies that became popular abroad. Another example is Samurai Fiction which introduces some MTV style pop sword fighting scenes. Nice, not bad at all. Or Takahashi Miike's graphic horror, or Takeshi Kitano's beat-pop flicks.
Then we have movies like "Returner" which is good example of an export movie designed from the scratch to be sold in abroad. The movie was the most expensive movie ever produced at that time, and it was something of a flop. Simply copying the Matrix style and effects wasn't enough (surprise!) to make a good cinematic experience, even the ultimate coolness of Kaneshiro Takeshi didn't save the movie from being nothing more than watch once and forget- experience.
Another movie from the same director is the opposite of the Returner, movie designed for the domestic market, Sunset on the Third Street. The movie is indeed fantastic, but somehow I anticipate that the DVD set will never become quite available in foreign countries. Movies like that won't sell abroad and the guys who export them know it.
Certainly everyone know Takeshi Kitano and Akira Kurosawa. Akira Kurosawa's entire movie selection is available in the local library here. Everyone can access these cinematic masterpieces. I only wish the same would be also for Kenji Mizoguchi or Yasujiro Ozu, whose movies offer much deeper view to the Japanese culture (from my point of view at least) than Kurosawa's films. But movies like Victory of Women (1946) or Late Spring (1949) are not so media-sexy as movies like "Rashomon" or "Seven Samurais". Their topic is not some ancient warriors fighting in distant land for their honour and loyalty, they handle daily life in modern postwar Japan. Foreign mass audience won't dig it. At least the guys who choose which movies are exported and which are not, seem to think so.
Myself, I grieve because of the lack of these kind of culturally rich movies in abroad. This is where TV has shown it's power - TV channels can choose their movies they show independently of the movie biz. So, we saw entire selection of Yasujiro Ozu's, Kenji Mizoguchi's and Mikio Naruse's movies here in Finland. I only wish this would be repeated now in digital era when people can record the movies legally to their hard disks and enjoy them again and again, instead of winding that same VHS tape until it's magnetic track is vaporized (something what happened to my personal copy of Victory of Women!).
If I would know that Kenji Mizoguchi's movies are shown again in future, I would right away end my boycott against the TV right away, and buy the television set, hd recorder, and pay the TV fee. 
However, it's not only the old movies that fascinate me. Otoko-tachi no Yamato (2005) is a movie which is wonderful, technologically pioneering in Japanese cinema.The movie is anti-war movie, and it has well rendered CGI planes and ship and good actors. Everything is as grand and great as in Hollywood cinema, even more detailed in most parts. And the movie is somehow very Japanese. The movie is nice for domestic market and for JAL movie selection. But this movie we will never see in the theaters here, not to mention in the US, where the biggest foreign audience is.
For foreign fans, often, the only way to obtain Japanese movies is to purchase them from Japan. Naomi Kawase's movies are like these, just as well as some Yoichi Sai's movies. They will be shown in domestic and international flights in JAL and ANA screens, but never enter the foreign screens, aside perhaps some movie festivals.
Ofcourse its great that there are attempts such as Asian Vision DVD releases which bring Japanese and other South-East Asian countries productions to foreign market, but it would be nice if they had other themes than sex, horror and violence.
Japan certainly should invest more into marketting Japanese motion picture abroad.
Then, I wish you all happy new year 2007!
PS: Nagisa Oshima's The Realm of the Senses is good example of strong export movie. The movie was totally banned in Japan so only place where you could see it was in fact France, and here in Finland you couldn't see it until 1979 (my birth year). In any case, still you can rent the VHS from almost any large rental shop. In addition, the movie was praised by critics, and it was, in fact, wonderful movie.
