Living on Tokyo Time (1987)

Best movie ever!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Blistering performances.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I rented this some years ago, the video store had only VHS at the time. Straight to video was hitting it's strides (you know, where the box covers use the same font and color schemes of successful films).I didn't know what to expect other than what was printed. First thing I thought while watching was "what the hells' wrong with the sound?"-Obviously there was no dialogue dubbing. Words echoed, so I stopped munching on whatever I had to pay closer attention-mind you there's no Shakespeare here!,just simple talk. The story is simple enough, boy meets girl etc.. What struck me as humorous and heartfelt was, the people in the movie didn't seem like caricatures written into the story,but rather non-actors plucked temporarily from their real jobs(uniforms included). All the while, you begin to sense what the filmmaker is after,then see that there are no attempts at cheap humor(people hurting their privates,using vulgarities this couldn't have hurt the marketing. There was something honest about it. I thought if they'd have a bigger budget then it would have been better, which i'm sure they considered daily,but, they went ahead and made it. This, I felt, was what independent film-making is all about.The word "Indy", is thrown around as if it's a Genre..Ha!..that's funny!

This is a cute and sad little story of cultural difference. Kyoko is a beautiful Japanese woman who has run to California to escape from a failed relationship in Japan. Ken is a Japanese American manual laborer with aspirations of rock and roll stardom but little concrete to offer a potential partner. Kyoko "marries" Ken in order to be able to stay permanently in the U.S., with the understanding that although they will live together until she gets a "green card" the marriage will be in name only. It soon develops that the parties are not on the same wavelength - or perhaps in the same "time zone", hence the title of the movie. As an immigration attorney I have seen such "arrangements" take on a life of their own, so I was pleased to see how well the filmmaker developed the dramatic possibilities of this situation.

I just saw this on the Asian network. Steven Okazaki really caught the impossibility of communicating between the two young people, with the language differences and even the two cultures. He also caught the everyday life of an Asian-American, including the very tiring familial issues that can arise.Spoiler: It was a very sad movie in that you would very much like things to work out between the two parties and you really care for them. It's obvious that Ken is a good person and so is Kyoko. But the movie ends as you expect it to end. Ken's show of anger is just perfect at the very end - exactly as it would happen in real life, still worrying about not breaking anything, even though the most important thing in his life has disappeared.

While "Living on Tokyo Time" is highlighted with fine performances from the two leads and a real sense of realism and desperation, the main feeling I took away from my viewing was depression. Dreams and hopes are shattered in the story and perhaps in the real world there are no happy endings, but, that's why we have movies.