Japanese Culture in Recent American Films (NY Times article)

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Article is .

We've been talking about many of these issues on the Kill Bill and Lost in Translation threads. This article also brings in The Last Samurai, which apparently is doing very well in Japan, despite the fact that it's probably taken the least seriously of those three films in the U.S. (Has anyone here actually seen it?)

Anyway, carry on. (Part of the reason I started this, too, is because the Kill Bill thread is so goddamn long.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Gah! That wasn't supposed to happen. Anyway, just click on the blue text to access the article.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I mentioned on the Kill Bill thread that I have a couple friends who just returned from living in Japan for two years, and they defended the portrayal of Japanese in Lost in Translation as affectionate, homegrown archetypes rather than ill-informed caricatures. And yet I think this article is right that the image of Bill Murray in the elevator is a cheap, tired joke: "Haha, Asian people are short."

My friends also thought the call girl scene was accurate insofar as it showed how in Japanese culture it is somewhat better to become hysterically demanding than to face the shame of having one's gift rejected. At the same time, this quote (in the article) makes sense: "A real call girl in Tokyo at a hotel like that for a star like him would have been top shelf and probably spoken passable English."

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Is everyone sick of talking about this by now?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

ah yes "top shelf"

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

You know, like vodka.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Or any liquor, really.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know why I felt the need to explain that.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, has anyone seen Japanese Story with Toni Collette?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.