boring movie, inaccurate view of Tokyo

Rating: 1/10 (22 September 2003)

I think the film makers have spent a few weeks or months in Japan maximum, and did things like go to night clubs, weird parties, and the usual tourist spots. Probably due to this the movie comes off with a view of the country like Americans usually have of other countries-- inferior to their own and things that they encounter and do not understand, instead of trying to comprehend they just brush off as quirky or act like they are putting up with something. The only American who fit into Tokyo really well was a freaky American actress there giving interviews for a new martial arts flick.
And the plot... a wife goes on a business trip with her husband and gets p***ed because he is working all the time? A father's kid runs out of the room and refuses to talk to him when he calls home? What kind of father is he when he is home to have a child who reacts like that?
I had no sympathy for these characters whatsoever.
I further got annoyed when they reflected their own insecurities onto their host country. Made jokes about Japanese people (both in their presence and not) and sulked around. And the film makers didn't even get the jokes right -- one really not funny one was how the 2 main characters went to a hospital and no one spoke English. Bill Murray made some crack about how they were not going anywhere else and the female looked blankly at the doctor. Ha ha. Americans making fun of non-English speakers in non-English speaking countries is not humorous to begin with. Especially in a country where the language is so far different from English and really difficult for native speakers to learn. Would it be funny if Japanese tourists came here and laughed at Americans because they cannot speak Japanese? And it was actually inaccurate because Japanese medical doctors pride themselves on their English ability-- they are taught quite a bit of English in medical school. And the hospital most likely would make sure to give the non-Japanese speaking American tourist visiting a hotel there a doctor whose English is especially good.
And the translator for the advertising company, in the first scene her English was quite good but then she could not translate the simplest things the camera man was saying to her. The camera man was saying really simple things in Japanese, things like- you are waiting for an old friend as you drink your Suntory- it does not matter if he turns from the right or the left- this is a top of the line expensive whiskey, treat it that way- (when he said this the translator said something like- do it more slowly). How could the previously adept English speaking translator not get any of it right.
And is doing group exercises really that funny? Maybe that is one of the reasons Japanese people are not as fat as Americans because they exercise regularly (and eat healthy food, which the Bill Murray character did admit).
Japanese people cannot pronounce 'r' and 'l' sound? Don't we all know this? (and don't think it much of a curiosity. very few in the audience laughed at this one) Incidentally, Japanese has a sound that is actually pronounced somewhere between 'r' and 'l' and it is a rare Japanese-speaking American who can get it right.
I think the goal of the Kyoto scene was to add a (gratuitous) touch of the exotic. Japan is in the mysterious Orient, after all.