In 2006 the Japanese movie industry accomplished what was once thought to be mission impossible - a majority market share. Domestic films accounted for $905 million or 53.3 percent of the $1.7 billion total box office. The feat, after three decades of Hollywood dominance, was all the more impressive in that no one blockbuster dominated. There was no Spirited Away, the Miyazaki Hayao animation whose $251 million gross lifted the local market share to 39 percent in 2001.
Instead the wealth was spread more evenly, with six Japanese films of the 417 released passing the 5 billion yen ($42 million) mark, according to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren). Altogether 28 Japanese films earned Y1 billion ($8.4 million) or more - the traditional marker of a hit at the local box office. Commenting on the resurgence, Eiren chairman Matsuoka Isao told reporters that “Movies used to be a by-word for a sunset industry and no one would put money into them. Now, however, they are Japan’s most important contents.”
The leader, with $64 million, was the animation Tales From Earthsea (Gedo Senki). Based on the fantasy series of the same title by Ursula K. LeGuin, the film was the directorial debut of Miyazaki Goro, the son of anime auteur Hayao. Though bashed by some reviewers (the Eiga Geijutsu magazine critics poll voted it the worst film of 2006), Tales From Earthsea benefited from the brand image Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli has built over the years with its crowd-pleasing animations.
It was followed at the box office by the sea actioner Umizaru 2: Test Of Trust (Limit Of Love Umizaru, $59.6 million), the Mitani Koki ensemble comedy Suite Dreams (The Utchoten Hotel, $51 million), the disaster pic Sinking Of Japan (Nippon Chinbotsu, $44.8 million), the supernatural suspenser Death Note: The Last Name ($43.7 million) and the WWII sea epic Yamato (Otokotachi no Yamato, $42.7).
All of the top ten Japanese films were produced by media consortiums, with TV networks taking a leading role, and eight were distributed by Toho - the industry’s 800-pound gorilla (or rather Godzilla).
All is not roses and sunshine for Japanese filmmakers, however. Of the 417 Japanese films released in 2006 - 100 more than just three years previously - the vast majority never recouped theatrically. Many others lost out in the fierce competition for the country’s 3,000 screens and were never released at all. (There is no firm number for the total number of feature films made in Japan last year, but 700 seems to be a good estimate.)
Several of the box office disappointments, such as Nana 2, the sequel to the 2005 smash-hit female buddy pic Nana, were touted as can’t-miss winners, but failed to find audiences despite massive PR campaigns and big fan bases for the original material - in Nana 2’s case, a hit comic. “What we’ve had has been a production bubble - and it’s starting to deflate a bit,” commented Sekiguchi Yuko, chief editor of Kinema Junpo, Japan’s oldest film mag. “The industry needs to find new approaches.”
One genre in need of such an approach is the romantic drama - a hot genre at the start of the current production boom in 2003, that has since cooled as producers rushed bad-to-mediocre tearjerkers to the screens. “They keep making the same kinds of films - and audiences are tiring of them,” Sekiguchi commented.
Another problem for producers is the stagnation of the DVD market, which once lifted many a film into the black. Also, more titles are crowding the shelves, making it even harder to turn a profit.
Meanwhile, the sequels, remakes and comic/ga-me/best seller-based movies that dominate Hollywood are also taking over at Japanese multiplexes for the same reasons. That is, the TV networks and other media giants that back them want safe bets in a tough marketplace, as budgets continue to rise. More films, like the 2007 fantasy/action hit Dororo and the Genghis Khan epic The Blue Wolf (Aoi Okami), are passing the once-formidable 2 billion yen ($17 million) barrier, which means that they have to gross at least twice as much for their producers to recoup - not easy even in a strong local market.
Their makers are thus more eager than ever for international sales, which used to be mostly an afterthought. The TBS network, which led the consortium that made Dororo, has sold the film to more than 20 foreign territories, with Universal taking the North American rights. Universal has also since expressed interest in the two Dororo sequels now in development, making TBS more confident about boosting their total budget to the 6 billion yen ($50 million) level.
Meanwhile, Genghis Khan had sold to 60 territories by the end of the Berlin market in February, including 11 in Asia and 49 in Europe and the Middle East. At the film’s Japan premiere on February 22nd producer Kadokawa Haruki proclaimed that he wanted 100 million people worldwide to see the film.
Bigger grosses and budgets, of course, does not always mean better films. But for all the formulaic product being made, interesting commercial films still manage to sneak into the multiplexes. One was Hula Girls, Lee Sang-il’s hula dance troupe drama, which was named the best picture of the year by the Kinema Junpo critics poll and won four Japan Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Hula Girls was also a hit for indie distributor Cine Quanon, grossing $11.8 million.
The film’s story of a locally recruited hula dance troupe bringing new pride and hope to a dying mining town echoed the 1996 Mark Herman hit Brassed Off as well as Yaguchi Shinobu’s 2004 smash Swing Girls. Based on a true story, Hula Girls nonetheless stood apart from the genre crowd with its well-blended mix of gritty realism, youthful energy and Hawaiian eroticism, filtered through a Japanese sensibility.
Another out-of-left-field hit, was Nakashima Tetsuya’s Memories Of Matsuko (Kiraware Matsuko no Issho), which echoed Chicago in its brassy musical numbers and stylized look, but violated Hollywood’s happy-ending formula in spectacular fashion. Sad fates for Japanese movie heroines are not uncommon, but Nakashima turned local genre convention on its head by celebrating Matsukos’s gusto for life with a glitzy CG-assisted exuberance - instead of taking the more usual route of melodramatically lamenting her luckless, but love-filled, existence. The film generated a TBS drama series, while star Nakatani Miki was showered with honors for her performance as Matsuko, including a Japan Academy Best Actress awards.
Even the much-derided manga movie genre has produced films that may reflect their comic book sources, but inventively build on them rather than slavishly imitate them. One is Dororo, Shiota Akihiko’s take on the classic manga by Tezuka Osamu. The film follows the manga’s main storyline - a young bionic warrior (Tsumabuki Satoshi) goes on a quest to recover 48 of his body parts that his warlord father gave to demons in exchange for power - but the feisty female thief who becomes his traveling companion, played by Shibasaki Kou, is not the child in Tezuka’s manga, but an adult woman. This change gives the film a sexual charge the manga lacks, which Shiota uses to good comic and dramatic effect. Though an entertaining film for older children (it’s too scary for tots), Dororo is also made with one eye firmly on the adult audience. Its various creatures, for example, are an imaginatively varied lot, from a chillingly agile spider demon to a comically clunky monster that looks like a nostalgic throwback to old tokusatsu (“special effects”) TV shows.
The biggest collective hit last year in this genre, however, were the two Death Note films, about a brilliant-but-twisted college student who finds a mysterious notebook that deals death to anyone whose name is written in it. Based on best-selling comic written by Ohba Tsugumi and illustrated by Obata Takeshi, the first film, Death Note, grossed $24 million following its release by Warner Bros. Japan in June of 2006. The second film, opening in November, earned $43.7 million, bringing the total for the duo to $67.7 million.
Though departing somewhat from the comic in its storyline - the student has a girlfriend, played by Kashii Yu, in the first movie, but not the manga - the Death Note films satisfied fans with its unusual blend of fantasy and suspense, with the duel of wits between the sly student-turned-killer and the reclusive, sweets-loving “genius” detective recruited to catch him being a main draw. Matsuyama Kenichi become a cult sensation for his portrayal of the detective, known only as “L,” with his pasty face, long, lanky hair and signature lollipop inspiring many a Halloween costume.
Meanwhile, veteran Yamada Yoji, the director of the 48-episode Tora-san series, defied genre conventions less by subverting them, like his younger peers, than purifying them. In Love And Honor (Bushi no Ichibun), the third of what Yamada has called his “samurai trilogy”, he films the story of a young samurai (Kimura Takuya) who loses his eyesight from poisoning and nearly loses his devoted wife (Dan Rei) from jealousy. Instead of the usual flaring nostrils and titanic sword battles of the jidai geki (period film) genre, Yamada has opted for restraint in word and gesture and realism in everything from class markers to sword moves. The result is a drama all the more powerful for being stripped to its essentials.
Boosted by the presence of TV megastar Kimura in the cast, Love And Honor was the Shochiku’s studio biggest hit of the year, passing the Y4 billion ($33.6 million) mark after its December release. Kimura was nominated for a Japan Academy Best Actor award but withdrew, reportedly since his agency, Johnny & Associates, has a policy against its talent competing for honors and awards. The film, however, won three Academy Awards, including a Best Cinematography prize for Naganuma Mutsuo and a Best Supporting Actor prize for Sasano Takashi for his performance as the couple’s harried manservant.
Animation, as the success of Tales From Earthsea indicates, is still Japan’s single biggest commercial genre, generating not just hit one-offs, but long-running series for the kiddies, including Doraemon, Crayon Shinchan and Pokémon. But animation directors more interested in pursuing a personal vision than turning out series entries can also flourish in the Japanese market. One is Kon Satoshi, who has shied away from anime clichés throughout his directorial career, beginning with Perfect Blue (1998) - a ground-breaking venture into psycho horror. Released in Japan last fall by Sony Pictures Entertainment, Kon’s latest, Paprika, is also his boldest, most thoroughly realized departure from anime convention. Its title heroine, a therapist who can enter her patients’ dreams, may share attributes with other anime cuties, but the phantasmagoric worlds that Kon creates for her, as well as the story’s mashing of dream and reality, make Paprika a mind-bending standout.
While the mainstream thrives, Japan’s independent film sector remains in flux, with even established filmmakers struggling to secure financing and screens, while the number of releases continues, against all odds, to grow. Fewer, however, fit the once-common definition of “art film” in Japan - i.e., plotless relationship dramas shot with one cut per scene, with emotional grey clouds hanging over the heads of the alienated protagonists. Nishikawa Miwa’s Sway (Yureru) exemplifies the direction more young indie directors have taken instead, toward stories with a genre flavor, but filmed with more of a serious, auteurist slant than the usual genre product.
Screened in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 2006, Sway begins as a drama of family and fraternal strife, with Odagiri Joe and Kagawa Teruyuki playing brothers with radically different personalities and lives - Odagiri citified, stylish and successful, Kagawa provincial, repressed and suicidal. Then a woman both brothers have feelings for falls to her death from a bridge while on an excursion with them. Kagawa confesses to pushing her, out of a combination of jealousy and rage, while Odagiri, the only witness, feels conflicted, since he is not quite sure what he saw - or what he should tell. The case goes to trial - and the film becomes a twisty, if overwrought, courtroom drama. Sway became an indie hit, while winning several year-end awards, including the Best Picture prize at the Yokohama Film Festival.
Even older auteurs, such as Sono Sion, Yazaki Hitoshi, Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Tsukamoto Shinya have moved in a more mainstream direction, while staying true to their indie roots. Sono, who made an international critical and commercial breakthrough in 2002 with Suicide Club (Jisatsu Circle), is still releasing films in tiny Tokyo “mini-theaters” (Japanese-English for “art houses”), including Balloon Club, Afterwards (Kikyu Club, Sonogo, 2006), a bitter-sweet drama about former college friends saying good-bye to their youths - think The Big Chill for Japanese Gen Y’ers.
His most recent film, though, is Exte (Exte: Hair Extensions), a horror flick released in February by major Toei. Osugi Ren stars as demented morgue attendant and hair fetishist who comes across a beautiful female corpse with hair growing out of every orifice - and begins to harvest it for hair extensions. What he doesn’t know, however, is that the hair is cursed - and capable of killing its wearers. Though Sono exploits this premise to the hilt, including room-filling eruptions of CG hair, he also gives his hair stylist heroine, played by Kuriyama Chiaki, more to do than scream, such as talk to herself, charmingly, in the third person. J Horror fans may complain that he is not taking his material seriously enough, but Sono fans will probably cheer his attempt to bring new ideas to a genre notably devoid of them (while hopefully financing his next indie film).
In his only fourth feature in 26 years, Strawberry Shortcakes, Yazaki Hitoshi brings his own sensibility and style to another played-out genre - the romantic drama. Some elements in his story, such as the four heroines’ frustrating search for Mr. Right, are genre standards, but he gives them quirks - one sleeps in a coffin, another pray to a meteorite “god” - that go beyond anything found in the oeuvre of Meg Ryan. Also, instead of ticking off plot points, he builds his story through an accretion of seemingly small actions and details, like a mosaic artist putting together a wonderfully intricate and integrated design from a box of oddly assorted tiles.
Another trend, not confined to the indie sector, is the growing presence of women in the front ranks of the industry. Japanese women have long been prominent behind the cameras (in front goes without saying), but usually in supporting positions, such as Nogami Teruyo, who was Kurosawa Akira’s script supervisor and producer for four decades - and recently published her English-language memoirs of that association, Waiting On The Weather.
The number of women directing feature films, however, was long quite small. Since the middle of the decade, however, women have been making feature debuts in a steadily growing stream, including New York University film school grad Nakamura Mayu with the coming-of-age drama The Summer Of Stickleback and animator Tominaga Mai with the surreal romp Wool 100%, both of which premiered at last year’s Pusan Film Festival.
Making by far the most spectacular bow, though, was photographer-turned-director Ninagawa Mika with the offbeat period drama Sakuran. Screened at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival and released in Japan on February 24 by Asmik Ace, Ninagawa’s take on feudal era Yoshiwara - a fabled red-light district in Edo (today’s Tokyo) - was informed by Ninagawa’s vibrant taste for color and composition and her understanding of her oiran (high-class prostitute) heroine as a young woman like so many today: wanting freedom and love - but not always sure how to reconcile the two. Tsuchiya Anna, a pop singer who rose to stardom as the snarling biker in the hit comedy Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari, 2004), plays her with punk energy and sass, together with a previously-seldom-seen vulnerability.
What is in store for the Japanese industry? New releases this year of powerhouse franchises like Harry Potter, Spider-Man and Pirates Of The Caribbean may well tip the scales back in Hollywood’s direction, but the Japanese industry has too much in its favor now for it to fall back into permanent retreat. Its pool of talented young directors and stars is large and growing. Also, money is flowing into films from not only the big Japanese media companies, but media funds and other new sources, with more foreign participation. Finally, the pop culture that serves as the source for so many films, including manga, anime, TV dramas and games, is still flourishing, with new creators and concepts constantly emerging.
But the production bubble Sekiguchi worries about it is real, with too many films being released for even dedicated cinephiles to keep up with. More importantly for their makers, there are too many films for the media and its mass audience to pay even fleeting attention to. Also, with traditional methods of distribution and exhibition under assault from digital-based technologies and their users, the industry as a whole will have to develop new strategies - or die. Chances are it will adapt, just as it adapted, however slowly and uncertainly, to the collapse of the studio system in the 1960s and 1970s. Japanese fans may soon watch their favorite films on their cell phones instead of a theater screen, but many will still want those films to have a Japanese face.
Mark Schilling