Tokyo Pop Film Review

 

 Tokyo Pop 

I've been meaning to watch Tokyo Pop for a while now. I actually came across this from a Tumblr post. This tumblr post wasn't anything all that special; it just featured the images of this movie's posters, but the title and the colors from those posters drew me in. I liked the aesthetic of it and the synopsis was intriguing enough so I added it to my watchlist and it became the first film on my Letterboxd watchlist. I finally watched it and I liked it just as I hoped.

This film as the description says on IMDB is about an American rock singer who goes to Japan initially to meet up with a friend but she ends up meeting a Japanese singer in a rock band and their lives intertwine. It is an interesting film that leaves you feeling warm at the end. I do miss just how visually pleasing movies used to look. I dig the roughness of this film from the grain and the messiness of some of the sets. The film's budget was never officially released but it said that it was low budget but it doesn't feel cheap. Everything I can tell was filmed at an actual location no studio sets or green screens here of course there shouldn't be any green or blue screens for a homely story such as this. For someone who's dream to visit Japan since high school this film was a pleasure to watch. I felt like I was in Tokyo and I also felt that I traveled back in time as I witnessed the fashion of the 80s and the bygone time of payphones and waving down taxis. As much as I enjoyed it Tokyo Pop is a very slow paced film. It runs at one hour and forty minutes or more accurately one hour and thirty-five minutes before the credits come up and it does feel longer than that, but I wasn't necessarily bored at any moment, it just seemed to drag around the forty-four minute mark some of these older movies tend to so I'm not judging it that harshly.

Wendy as she just arrives in Tokyo. 

One big gripe I did have which I'm not going to really spoil, but there's a part in the movie where she first meets someone and he tries something sleazy with her and she is rightfully pissed about it and doesn't want to talk to him and when she meets him again there is some pushback but I feel that she gets over it way too quickly in my opinion to be really honest I don't think she should've forgave him at all, but if they were going to do that the script should have really gave more time with her talking to him and then considering forgiving him. As slow paced as the beginning was this was definitely an element that needed more time.

Aside from that I did greatly enjoy Tokyo Pop and the relationship that these characters had. Wendy is a great character and you have a real sense of who she is, her struggles and what she wants. The theme of this movie is about chasing your dreams and doing what makes you happy and also opening up yourself to others and letting them know how you feel. There's also some good ass music in this film. Carrie Hamilton who plays Wendy has a really nice singing voice as well as Yutaka Tadokoro who plays Hiro. I am definitely adding "Hiro's Song" to my library. Tokyo Pop is genuinely good and it's a shame that it didn't have a wide release in the States. More people should watch this and I think Nana fans in particular might like this.