Tag Archives: japanese film

Fake It Till They Make It: Rental Family

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It’s remarkable to me how much Rental Family feels like a Japanese film. 

That might come across as an obvious or perhaps even insulting comment, given that the director Hikaru is Japanese and the fact that it’s a Japanese/American co-production. However, to have a work with its aesthetics, storytelling, and subject matter get a wide theatrical release in the US—without being an import—feels special. A fair number of American films depict Japan or take place in them, but they don’t bring that same energy that one often finds in more contemplative dramas from Japan. 

Rental Family is about Phillip Vanderploeg (played by Brendan Fraser), a white American who has been living in Japan for seven years while trying to find work as an actor. Despite some modest successes early on, it’s been a struggle filled with rejections. Desperate for anything, he ends up working for a “rental family” business, in which he and other employees play roles for clients to fulfill some need, be it emotional or pragmatic. Phillip’s acting skills help him with this line of work, but when he begins to genuinely make emotional connections on the job, it complicates matters for everyone involved in these charades.

Phillip’s boss mentions early on that mental health issues are stigmatized in Japan, and that people find other outlets to deal with these problems, of which the rental family business is one. The film does a good job of introducing this idea to a potentially unfamiliar audience without feeling unnaturally expository, and also while feeling like a criticism of a facet of Japanese society from an insider perspective. It’s a country somewhat infamous for having a lot of places to engage in parasocial behavior (host clubs, maid cafes, brothels, idol fandom), but it depicts this behavior in a fair and even-handed fashion that highlights its benefits as much as its downsides.

For example, while Phillip never engages in adult business for his job, he does visit a sex worker, and it’s notable how this is not portrayed in a negative light. While this is a relationship fueled by the exchange of money for services and where interaction is on a timer, they actually enjoy each other’s company and think highly of each other. At the same time, they’re both well aware of the “professional” nature of it all, and they leave it at that small bit of emotional reciprocation.

The notion of hiring someone to pretend to be your friend or husband (or even a journalist to make your aging thespian father still feel special) can sound pathetic. “What, you need to pay someone to spend time with you?” There are limits to playing “pretend,” and it can go terribly wrong. However, the film emphasizes the idea that this charade might very well be the catalyst that brings a person out of their rut or their crushing social situation, and a major part of Phillip’s development throughout Rental Family is the joy he experiences seeing his clients and/or their families healing psychological wounds to an extent. The job is both fulfilling and taxing on his mental wellbeing, and as the plot progresses, it can show how challenging it is for Phillip to navigate that balance.

I highly recommend Rental Family, but I actually want to end off by talking about a completely different example of a white actor who became a symbol of parasocial dynamics.

Billy Herrington was a gay porn actor who became a meme on the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga before tragically passing away in a car accident. In one of his adult films, he wrestled another performer in a locker room while wearing very little clothing, and this became the endless subject of music videos, remixes, and parodies. There are many reasons this could be considered controversial or perhaps even offensive, but Billy became a minor celebrity in Japan as a result, and he even got to meet his fans at an offline event in Japan. While I don’t have a link to the original story anymore, I recall reports that some fans actually cried meeting Billy, and even told him how much he had helped them in darker times. 

Ever since then, when I think about something being seen as silly or vapid, I wonder if it might still help someone overcome their own personal challenges. And while Phillip’s circumstances and means of changing people’s lives are not the same as Billy’s, I see his character (and the work of a rental family business) in a similar capacity, turning the “fake” into the “real enough.” 

PS: At the very beginning of Rental Family, the film has a series of establishing shots of Tokyo, and in one of the shots is, I believe, an image of a Saber from Type Moon’s Fate franchise (though if you ask me which one, I wouldn’t be able to tell you). In Fate/stay night, the protagonist Shirou famously has a line saying, “Who says a copy can’t surpass the original?” in response to the notion that his replicated weapons are inherently inferior to his opponent, Gilgamesh the King of Heroes.

It might very well be a coincidence, but I can’t help wondering if that brief appearance was on purpose.

I Finally Watched Seven Samurai

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Recently, I watched Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai for the first time. I’ve long been aware of Kurosawa’s reputation as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and that Seven Samurai is often seen as his magnum opus, but only in the past few years have I actually begun to engage with his work.

Having now seen the film, I feel it deserves every bit of praise it has ever received. Its storytelling, cinematography, acting, and themes all hold up extremely well. The word “timeless” is thrown around often, but little to nothing about Seven Samurai feels dated in its presentation, and that helped me to understand why this was such a pivotal work in the history of film. Given that this is one of the most discussed movies of all time, there’s not much (if anything) I can add to the conversation. Nevertheless, I still want to say something.

Seven Samurai is set in feudal Japan, where a poor farming village is the victim of bandits. Left with next to nothing, a group of villagers go into the city to try to hire a samurai to protect them from the next impending raid. However, most samurai are either too expensive to hire, and most of the ones who would be okay with merely receiving food as payment aren’t exactly the best. But when they see one samurai go to great lengths to rescue a girl being held hostage, they know he’s the one. After some desperate pleading, this veteran agrees to help, but he must first gather six other capable allies if they have any chance of repelling the bandits. 

Reading about Seven Samurai, I’ve come to learn that it is not just any film about bringing the band together—it is the film. While there are precedents in other forms of media (notably the Chinese classic Water Margin and its whopping 108 heroes), it is the grandfather of this ever-popular genre in cinema, and shines strongly against its descendants after all these years. The utterly unique personalities of all seven warriors, and the ebb and flow of harmony and discord created by their interactions amidst the mission at hand is just amazing. That influence can be felt in the fact that its characters and their archetypes are still referenced in media to this day, like the stoic (yet deceptively kind) figure dedicated solely to his swordsmanship, the young noble who wishes to be one of the down-and-dirty heroes so unlike his upbringing, and the brash and bearded rebel who eschews all the etiquette and formality of the elite.

The only thing that makes the film feel of an entirely different time is its portrayal of women, which reminds me more of Golden Age Hollywood with its dramatic closeups of fluttering eyelashes and the like, as well as the relatively reductive roles of the female actresses.

If anyone is daunted by the age of Seven Samurai or its 3 ½ hour run time, don’t be. It doesn’t require its viewer to be a dedicated student of cinema or to have a particular fondness for the classics. Kurosawa’s most famous film remains compelling, exciting, and filled with important messages about how things are achieved through mutual aid and cooperation.

“This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you’ll only destroy yourself.”

The Gargantuan Shadow of Trauma: Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color

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Godzilla is practically a genre unto itself. With a 70-year history, the movies featuring the world’s most famous reptilian titan have run the gamut, from  thought-provoking to spine-tingling, and silly to somber. Now, the franchise has entered the Reiwa era with one of its most unique entries in Godzilla Minus One, winner of the 2024 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

The actual title of the movie piqued my curiosity upon seeing it—what does “Minus One” even mean? The answer is a work that has decided to go the opposite direction of most remakes. Rather than asking what would it be like if Godzilla emerged in [insert modern era here], Godzilla Minus One moves the clock back and explores what it would have been like had Godzilla arrived at the end of World War II. Specifically, the story is about Shikishima Koichi, a would-be kamikaze pilot who ran away from the grim fate set out for him, and whose encounter with Godzilla instills an additional level of trauma in him.

The most powerful thing about the film is the complex emotions that not just Koichi but everyone around him are processing in the aftermath of World War II. An old neighbor looks at him as a traitorous coward, but dire poverty forces them to make a connection. Koichi forms an erstwhile family with a woman named Noriko and a young orphan named Akiko, but his desire to provide for them is tinged with a refusal to see a happy future with them out of guilt for all the soldiers who couldn’t make it back to their families. 

The version of the film I watched was called Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, meaning it was done in black and white. Going in, I wondered if it was just novelty, but the fact that it takes place in a time before the original Godzilla’s release makes the aesthetic decision very appropriate for the period.

In a way, Godzilla Minus One and Koichi serve as another perspective of a feeling present in another Japanese film about the wartime era: In This Corner of the World. That film shows how the constant message of “sacrifice yourself for the war effort” affects the civilians in ways they don’t even realize until everything comes tumbling down, and Godzilla Minus One looks at how a soldier is affected by the same propaganda. On the surface, there are times when the film seems like it might be saying something worrisome about bringing back the glory of Japan, but it’s ultimately much more complex and anything but jingoistic.

Koichi’s actor, Kamiki Ryunosuke, delivers an amazing performance that tears at the heart and soul. Incidentally, I had recently watched him in the live-action movie adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Part 1, where he plays another character named Koichi. In that work, Kamiki is far and away the best actor despite being in a supporting role. I later found out that he’s actually been a voice actor since childhood, appearing in multiple big animated films from Miyazaki Hayao and Hosoda Mamoru. Out of this illustrious career, Godzilla Minus One might be his finest work ever.

I applaud the makers for going this hard with a franchise film that’s meant to transition into a new era in Japan. It could have been all too easy to play it safe, but this one looks just as inward at Japan’s history and problems as Shin Godzilla and even the original. Let the Universal films bring the action—Minus One encompasses the other end of the grand Godzilla spectrum.