The names behind the production & restoration of the international 80s punk romcom Tokyo Pop can be a little jarring at first, but you quickly get used to it.  Kino Lorber’s recent Blu-ray release of the movie states that its restoration was made possible by the Jane Fonda Fund for Women Directors.  I did not previously know that fund existed, but it does track with Fonda’s keen, career-long political awareness within the Hollywood system.  The statement goes on to say that funding was supported by contributions from Dolly Parton & Carol Burnett, who aren’t regularly in the business of film preservation & distribution.  The Dolly Parton donation makes the most immediate sense, given both her collaboration with Fonda on the classic workplace-politics comedy 9 to 5 and her philanthropic contributions to other worthy causes, like developing a viable vaccine for COVID-19.  Burnett’s involvement only makes sense once you learn that her late daughter, Carrie Hamilton, stars in the film in her biggest role outside of her TV credits.  So, the only collaborator here that I can’t fully make sense of is the namesake of the Woman Director in question who’s being supported by Fonda’s fund.  Tokyo Pop was Fran Rubel Kuzui’s debut feature as a director and earned great accolades after its premiere at Cannes.  What I can’t fully wrap my mind around is the fact that Kuzui’s only other directorial credit is the 1992 movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another high-style cult classic with great sleepover VHS rental appeal.  Why didn’t she get an opportunity to direct more movies?  It’s the kind of sexist Hollywood funding disparity that requires activist intervention, say, from a Jane Fonda type.

Hamilton stars as an NYC rock ‘n’ roller who moves to Japan on a whim and becomes an unlikely popstar.  Arriving without a plan or much pocket change, she’s saved from going destitute by a soul-crushing job playing hostess to drunk businessmen at a karaoke bar and by a fortuitous hookup with the singer of a rock ‘n’ roll band who’s looking for a gaijin (foreigner) vocalist.  She’s reluctant to take the singing job at first, since part of the reason she fled New York in the first place was that she was tired of “singing backup for creeps.”  She eventually gives in, though, and the band quickly becomes a kind of Japanese novelty act, performing karaoke-style covers of pop tunes like “Do You Believe in Magic?” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”.  The songs are admittedly corny, but Hamilton is admirably thorny in a Smithereens kind of way, playing the sour counterbalance to romantic co-lead Yutaka “Diamond Yukai” Tadokoro’s childlike sweetness.  In one standout sequence, he teaches her Japanese as sexual foreplay, but then she stops the session short once he mounts her with boyish over-enthusiasm.  The movie constantly undercuts its romcom beats in that way, ultimately deciding that it’s even more romantic if its central players don’t end up together in the end – prioritizing personal triumph over interpersonal connection.  As far as white-women-soul-searching-in-Tokyo stories go, it’s at least as effective as Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning Lost in Translation, with the added benefit of not taking itself nearly as seriously.  Incredibly, Diamond Yukai also appears in that film, but that time without his band Red Warriors in tow.

As smartly balanced as its romantic-comedy notes are, Tokyo Pop is most remarkable as a documentary time capsule of 80s Japanese pop kitsch.  It gawks at the pop-art iconography of Tokyo from every angle it can manage, taking the audience on a tour of psychedelic rock clubs, karaoke bars, fast food restaurants, kaiju-scale advertisements, pro wrestler locker rooms, unlicensed Disney-themed hostels, and pay-by-the-hour sex motels.  Our lead has no defined persona of her own, imitating famous American singers in her stage performances and advertising her availability to any band who’ll take her, regardless of genre.  Tokyo’s cultural persona more than makes up for that deficiency, overwhelming the screen with the bright, cartoonish colors of a city-size arcade.  It’s entirely possible that Fran Rubel Kuzui never directed much after this debut because she never wanted to leave that arcade.  Most of her non-Buffy career highlights after Tokyo Pop are tied to the Japanese entertainment industry rather than Hollywood or the NYC indie scene, mostly exporting low-budget American films and seasons of South Park there.  Tokyo Pop ends with Hamilton bravely deciding not to allow Tokyo to swallow her up, so that she gives up a loving relationship with a fellow rock ‘n’ roller so she can be her own person instead.  Maybe Kuzui gave into the candy-coated mania of that city instead, allowing herself to get fully lost in translation.  Or, just as likely, she just wasn’t given many worthwhile opportunities by the money men of American film studios so she created her own career path outside the US instead, refusing to play “backup for creeps.” 

-Brandon Ledet