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International couples promote “My Darling is a Foreigner”

The film version of “My Darling is a Foreigner” opened in theaters across Japan on Saturday. On Japanese TV, there are commercials running in which Foreign male/Japanese female couples endorse the movie (it’s so VeryGood, it doesn’t even require a space between “Very” and “Good”):

And in case you missed it, here’s the teaser for the movie:

But please wait before spending money on a movie ticket – reviews by Ken Y-N at What Japan Thinks and a reader of MutantFrog warn that the film is pretty crappy. Apparently it is a cheaply produced filmed full of bad acting and painfully obvious product placement. It also seems to be set in a fantasy world where no Japanese person ever uses the word “gaijin.”

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43 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 12, 2010 at 10:18 am

Categories: Films, Foreigners in Japan Tags:

http://gakuranman.com Mike

I went to see it yesterday and enjoyed it overall. The first 15 minutes or so are slow and not particularly interesting. I got the feeling they tried to cram bits of the book in without really working them into the story well. The rest of the movie is a lighthearted love story about a couple overcoming their differences, much like most jdramas. It’s nothing original or particularly ground breaking, but the message is simple and heartwarming, so it gets a thumbs up from me.
Kono

“My Darling is a Foreigner!” (but my parents hate it…)
Hamachiman

Looks like it was based on a comic:

http://www.japanprobe.com/2009/08/26/my-darling-is-a-foreigner-the-movie/
Abras

The original manga is actually very astute in its commentary on international marriages. (And its humour works well in little framed snippets.) I’m sorry to see that, yet again, the film industry has ruined the source through transmigration.
Miss_igirisu

They probably don’t use the word gaijin because the “darling” on which the story is based was best mates with Debito, and used to help him campain in the early years, before they had a big argument and stopped being bestest best friends.

LB

Actually, it was the other way around: Tony invited Debito to join Tony’s group Issho Kikaku way back when. Tony wasn’t “helping” Debito, Debito was supposed to be “helping” Tony. If the word “gaijin” is not used around Tony, it is due entirely to his own efforts, and those of his wife (the author of the series), and not at all to Debito. I seriously doubt very many people associated with this movie even know who Debito is – or care.
cryptnotic

I was hoping no one would bring that up. The stupid gaijin versus gaikokujin debate is so overplayed. Stupid English language essayists want people to think that if they’re in Japan and they’re called gaijin it’s an insult.

And I seriously don’t understand why Debito thinks he’s still a gaijin. Oh, that’s right, because he is. Changing your citizenship and your name can’t change who you are and where you came from.

Level3

If you must insist on seeing it in a theater, you’d probably better hurry. Dragged to a showing, and there were 6 people in the theater, including us, the Japanese-gaijin couple.

Overall, a couple “That’s so true!” (at least to the GF) moments from the manga, the rest is a boring cliched love story, which, save some hand-holding, could almost have been called “Roommate wa gaikokujin”

Cliches include:
The “romantic” man who literally stops to smell flowers while walking (actually, skipping along) alone, and just happens to be a male model or something.
Long scenes of moping and/or staring at the sea during the second act, wherein the Conflict (TM) occurs. Will they break up?! Oh, the suspense!
A minor character who is obviously based on Charisma Man, except the portrayal is so… flamboyant in his gaijin-ness, that it’s hard to believe he’d actually be interested in the J women he claims are lining up to bed him.

But, I won’t spoil the ending for you.

The movie is an easy candidate for a MST3k treatment, except only WE would get the jokes.

LB

A minor character who is obviously based on Charisma Man, except the portrayal is so… flamboyant in his gaijin-ness, that it’s hard to believe he’d actually be interested in the J women he claims are lining up to bed him.

Huh – so Debito is mentioned in the movie, then?

leitmotiv

Huh – so Debito is mentioned in the movie, then?

I see you’re still doing the stealth viral promotion campaign for that guy. The approach of “random bitchy comments for some arcane and never-explained personal feud” is old and busted. You need a novel hook to drive new traffic to that site.

http://www.feitclub.com feitclub

The movie has nothing to do with Debito, so how about you lay off him?

“It is a cheaply produced film full of bad acting and painfully obvious product placement” could describe EVERY J-drama on the air/in theaters right now. I’m so happy that my wife is happy to read the books and has no interest in seeing this in theaters. Those “happy couple” ads seriously give me the creeps.

ponta

But for some reason, Debito wants to have something to do with the movies, by engaging in personal attacks on Tony, doesn’t he?

leitmotiv

Debito wants to have something to do with the movies, by engaging in personal attacks on Tony, doesn’t he?

Interesting logic.
randomcommenter

If you end an argument with an appeal for agreement (“doesn’t he?”), what you’re saying has to make sense, otherwise nobody will agree with you.

I don’t even know if you’re right or if you’re wrong, because “Person A hates person B. Person B later went on to be involved in a movie. Thus, person A wants to have something to do with said movie” just doesn’t make sense. For one, it inverts basic physical laws by having effects precede causes.

Unless…unless you’re arguing that Debito is a time traveler. Is that it?

ponta

Leitimotive
Indeed, very interesting.

randomcommenter

You have nothing to do with me, but you can have something to do with me by commenting on my comment.

In any case, do you guys agree with his personal attack on Tony, statements about Tony like “my darling’s face is ambidextrous” “Marry someone with talent”, which make Debito have something to do with this movies?

Is that the way Debito followers deal with a successful gaikokujin who is making a happy life with with a Japanese woman?
LB

Now, now, Ponta – that wasn’t Debito’s attack. He just “found” that cartoon, remember? He couldn’t have drawn it himself anyway – no English teacher worth his salt would use such a nonsensical phrase as “My darling’s face is ambidextrous”. Nor would any native speaker – someone’s face cannot be “ambidextrous”. Classic example of a beginner latching onto a word from a dictionary without properly understanding how to use it. A native-speaker like Debito would surely not make such a stupid mistake.
http://www.feitclub.com feitclub

If Debito wants to talk shit about Tony on his website, he can do that. If someone wants to talk shit about Tony in this thread, they can do that.

What makes no sense is dragging in a third party’s name to this discussion when they are completely unrelated to this film & the original manga. Shall we talk about Bob Sapp now? Let’s not.
ponta

Did Bob Sapp talk shit about Tony on his website and ban the comments , criticizing Bob for talking shit about Tony and the movies? Why can’t we talk about it here?
.

Adamu

It actually does have a small something to do with the big D (D hates T and made an excruciatingly bad parody when he learned about this movie), so that’s enough to set people off.
Yosi

I’ll wait till it’s out on DVD

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Wait until it’s out on BitTorrent – you really don’t want to waste your money buying it!

pixel_bomber

Is this supposed to be like a Japanese comedy version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”?
lovely

that second ad is just just just horrible. i won`t be going to see it.
BenP

Hmm…. I think I’m gonna go see it regardless.
Spector

To me Gaijin is a bit of an odd word. It groups all foreigners in to one group which is a little bit insensitive. In the UK and US we try to describe people by their nationality don’t we? It just seems a little insensitive.

RMilner

That is because to Japanese people the key distinction is not which country or culture you are from, but whether you are Japanese or not.

Allegedly.
LB

I would say in the US and UK the description is more by “ethnicity” than “nationality”. “Asian” (Indian/Pakistani in UK, Chinese/Japanese/Korean in the US), “Arab”, “Black”, “Hispanic”. Again fairly arbitrary – what does a Mexican have in common with a Brazilian? Or an Iranian with a Moroccan? Not much…

In common usage, “gaijin” tends to mean “white”. Sure, “hakujin” could be used for the same thing, but if we want to get all sensitive and such what do I have in common with an Estonian? Nothing, so it is still arbitrary. But anyway… Most Japanese I know do, more often than not, distinguish – “Chuugokujin”, “Tounan Ajiajin”, “Chuunanbei no hito”, “Kokujin”, “Indojin” etc. Japanese kind of have to nowadays in conversation. If not, and they just said “So there was this foreigner in line at the store…” it is too vague. Just as it would be in English.
nagoriyuki

@ Spector
I see the word “Asian” not a few times in western contents to describe whoever Japanese, Korean or Chinese. It depends on the history the country has. Japan had been closed to foreign countries except China and Netherlands for hundreds of years, so we didn’t have to distinguish their nationality in detail. Additionally, Japan is an island country, which means geographically any person that comes over to Japan is just a “foreigner.” There was a clear line between the Japanese and Gaijin; whether they come by ship or not. I think it is natural that people don’t use such various terms to describe something they are not so familiar with. When I was in England, my host family always called themselves “Scottish.” Though you may say just “UK” for them all.

http://chouzuru.blogspot.com/ Sara Mari

I want to see some Caucasian woman and Japanese man couples!

lovely

sorry, we live pretty normal lives and don`t put our stuff out there for everyone to see.

returner

gotta agree with this… I’d find it pretty to embarrassing to be on a promo video like that :/

http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

I won’t see the movie, but I’m getting more and more interested in the manga. Too bad I didn’t pick it up last time I was in Japan.
jake

More proof that gaijins can’t tell the difference between cute and ugly Japanese girls.
Come on people.. use some better judgment before taking a girl out in public

pixel_bomber

More proof that people on the internet act like douchebags while hiding behind perceived anonymity.

JK

And your real name is pixel_bomber? Your parents had some real issues.

And what is wrong with the above comment? What makes you think that person wouldn’t make the same comment in public? I’ve seen the same thing said on public TV, that westerners tend to pick not so attactive women in the eyes of locals, how does that make the above person a douchbag?

Did he did a nerve with you? Is the asian slapper you picked not quite as good looking as you hoped?

sei

This movie is so interested for me.
They are also in my friends.
I respect there. becouse they are through wall of ward.
もっと英語が上手くなりたい（´・ω:;.:…
jjjjj

Apparently there is a film coming out in Australia about a tall blond girl who marries
a Japanese man and it is called “my darling is a whale-meat eater”
whiteyroundeye

It may seem entertaining, but if you analyze the contents of this film, the depiction of a “foreign” partner enforces dangerous stereotyping which often results from, and leads to, prejudice and bigotry. It may seem to be a positive light in which the “foreign” partner is depicted, however, this can also have adverse effects on the Japanese psyche surfacing as “Gaijin Akogare” or Foreigner admiration. If a film was made in a western country titled “My Darling is a Japanese” it would be viewed as nothing but flagrant racism. And really, who cares where your “darling” is from. Would be wonderfully entertaining to see something about a Japanese male and Western female couple. From my experience as a white female living in Japan I am constantly harassed by older generation Japanese men asking me “How much are you?” staring or trying to touch me when I am alone, going about my daily business and traveling to teaching jobs. And when I am with my Japanese partner they think “how much did he pay for her?”
Seems like a paradise for the Gaijin guys out there if you go by this film.

i-agree-completely

great rant! i’m not a fan of the manga… but i know the woman who writes it and her gaikokujin daarin are a bit out there… which is normal in foreign couples here, because the majority of japanese interested in long-term relationships with foreigners are themselves a bit out of place, and have a precarious relationship to the mainstream. but in this film, we find a bubble-headed, standard j-girl who, in the real world, would likely never go out with a foreigner – or if she did, only as asobi. both lead characters are so one-dimensional, i’m surprised the original writer of the manga did not disassociate herself from the project. secretly, you know she wishes she could. i imagine her and daarin both regret this film. as for the person above who commented that the (tragic and shameful) commercials show “foreigners have bad taste in japanese women,” i refer you back to the point that it is women who are “ugly-to-japanese-guys” that, after a life of rejection and emotional (if not physical) cruelty at the hands of j-guys, would be led to the culturally non-japanese position of being open to foreigners… and we foreigners generally aren’t typical of our countries, either…. so get real. but statistically, and despite public image, most foreign couples are japanese guys with foreign wives (korean and chinese at the top). and these guys – who, like “ugly j-women”, also certainly have a precarious relationship to dominant japanese society, although they usually lack any sense of humility from their loser-ness – tend to be into power games… real macho jerks, with even less communication skills than most j-men… i love living in japan. i love the ease of daily life here, the abundance of employment, and the lack of being hassled or threatened in the streets (unlike the US). but the interpersonal relationships are murder. totally depressing. and seeing these commercials on tv really disturbed me, and my j-partner.

Eamon de Valera

I saw this movie, it was cute but also had a lot of silly things, and many things that just did not make sense, plus, the obligatory making fun of of how dumb foreigners are. Fortunately, Westerners are not as sensitive to these things as most Asians are, so my reaction was simply “that’s dumb,” rather than to be offended.

First, the main character speaks exceedingly proficient Japanese, and so must have lived in Japan for quite some time and studied very diligently. And yet, he is shown throughout the film to have not a clue about Japanese culture and be totally unaware of basic cultural differences. This makes no sense. He also does dumb things that are not cultural gaffs, in that they are not things a Westerner might do unaware that it was inconsistent with Japanese culture. For example, he takes his girlfriend to a party where every single other guest is foreign, then ignores her for hours. In America, I would not take a date to a party where she knew no one, not introduce her to anyone and ignore her for hours, and this guy is otherwise quite considerate.

He is also shown to be “trying” to become a better future husband, by doing laundry and washing the dishes, which of course he proves to be hopeless at, being both a foreigner and a man. It made me wonder: He’d been living on his own for years before he met the Japanese girlfriend, how did he manage dishes and laundry before that? One thing he did was wash the dishes and leave the soap on when he put them up to dry: People in England do this, but Americans usually rinse off the soap after cleaning (this guy is supposedly American). Then there are vignettes of dumb things Japanese girlfriends’ foreign guys do, like putting Tobasco sauce in beer (I’ve been a gaijin all my life, I’ve never heard of that – anyone?). One guy brought white flowers to his girlfriend, OK, he would not have known those are used for funerals (the US postal service put white flowers on Chinese new year stamps in 2009, same thing: Chinese would be mortified by this, white being the color of death and white flowers for funerals only, really, really bad luck especially at the start of the new year).

Aside from that, it was a cute little film with some moderate insight into the ins and outs of cross-cultural relationships, moderate, very moderate and superficial ones, but I guess the film was meant to be a light-hearted comedy. Interesting that the Japanese girl is convinced the boyfriend’s family will not accept her because she is Japanese, when in fact it’s her family that does not accept the gaijin guy. She also totally takes for granted the stuff he does for her, like washing and making her tea, stuff no Japanese guy would do but instead of being happy she complains he does it all wrong.

But if you are interested in Japan and Japanese culture, you may find this amusing, as I did.
JK

More crappy propaganda, why does the male always have to be a ‘white’ male (as in 100% of movies featuring this kind of coupling?), and why couldn’t it show the relationship between a Japanese man and a foreign women? Addressing why this kind of coupling is less common (i.e. how white/asian males are promoted in the media).

http://www.japanprobe.com James

More crappy propaganda, why does the male always have to be a ‘white’ male (as in 100% of movies featuring this kind of coupling?) , and why couldn’t it show the relationship between a Japanese man and a foreign women?

This movie is the adaptation of a manga written by a Japanese woman who is married to a ‘white’ male.

Maybe you should write her a letter explaining why this movie should have changed her husband into a Japanese guy and made her the foreigner.

CodeRed

Interesting, I’d check it out even if for a good laugh. The comments on this board are comedy enough. Some people are asserting that only Japanese women who are ugly to Japanese men are the ones who go after foreigners — I have a girlfriend of 5 years now from Yokohama who has Japanese guys constantly trying to get with her (not that I’m mad, I find it a compliment). But regardless, just because Japanese men in general doesn’t find a Japanese woman to be attractive, does not make her ugly. Afterall, flat butts are a big hit with men in Japan, whereas most American men feel the complete opposite. There are no hard and fast rules to foreigner/Japanese dating.

International couples promote “My Darling is a Foreigner”

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