Fall in Love with Fran Rubel Kuzui’s Tokyo Pop All Over Again with IndieCollect’s 4K Restoration

How easily is it to balance blossoming romance with the anarchic souls of punk, heavy metal and rock ‘n roll? Where does the space exist for these dueling components to harmonize? Apparently, Tokyo; Fran Rubel Kuzui’s 1988 musical romantic comedy Tokyo Pop puts these unlike things together with such breezy tenderness that she makes the central challenge of making attitude, hallmarks of these related but separate music genres, just a moment in time. Characters curl their lips and thrash on stage in one scene but pour out their hearts to each other the next, without contradiction in tone. 

Independent film organization IndieCollect recently revitalized Tokyo Pop in sterling 4K, a deserved honor on a couple levels. One, the movie looks great, and looks greater now courtesy of its restoration. Two, restoration means fresh recirculation through the moviegoing environment, and while only arthouse patrons are likely to see Tokyo Pop, that’s enough of an audience given that the film has languished since its 1988 release. After a Cannes premiere and theatrical runs around Asia, Europe and choice U.S. cities, Tokyo Pop wound up teetering on the brink of indie film oblivion when distributor Spectrafilm collapsed. Kuzui and her producer (and husband) Kaz rescued what materials they could, but it took a search through New Y0rk’s Japan Society in 2019 to find an actual print. 

The percentage of cinema lost to institutional carelessness and time is hard to measure, so the preservation of Tokyo Pop comes as a miracle, because even small, unassuming independent films about a bleach-blonde American singer and a shaggy Japanese rock-obsessive deserve saving. In this particular case, the restoration functions as an in memoriam, too; Carrie Hamilton, who played the American, died in 2002 at age 38, with a short list of credits to her name, the Fame TV series and Tokyo Pop among them. The film desperately needed rescuing regardless, but given her tragic, too-soon loss, IndieCollect’s efforts feel something like a tribute.

Hamilton’s Wendy starts the movie in NYC, where she’s passed over for singing parts by her lousy rock band frontman boyfriend in favor of another woman, and immediately cuts ties and runs to Tokyo, where a friend’s standing invitation is supposed to provide accommodations. But shortly after landing, she finds out that her friend moved out of the country, leaving Wendy to fend for herself in a hostel decorated as a shrine to Mickey Mouse, one of many American imprints on Japanese culture Kuzui makes note of throughout the film. A Dunkin’ Donuts here, a KFC there, and vibrant rockabilly activity seemingly all over the damn place, which is how she meets Hiro (Yutaka Tadokoro). 

Hiro’s a charming scoundrel. On their first encounter, he tries to bed her in a love hotel on a dare by his bandmates and pals, which goes about as well as an instance of mixed messages and miscommunications abetted by language barriers can go; Wendy bites his head off and sleeps in the tub, with Hiro left to cram himself on the couch. Tokyo isn’t small, but Wendy and Hiro’s chosen subculture is; inevitably but not improbably, they bump into each other again, with a happier outcome. They become friends. They become an item, too, as well as partners in rock ‘n roll, because Hiro and his buddies know that having a towering blonde gaijin on vocals can only be good for their career. What Tokyo Pop never allows is overcooked drama where the couple has to decide if they’re really in love, or if they’re just trying to hit it big. The film is genuine. It devoutly avoids putting on airs.

Music is only a tertiary matter to Kuzui anyhow, compared to her leads’ performances and her obvious affection for Tokyo. Tokyo Pop carries out the dynamic of cultural trade – the way that American fashion and music and business impinge on metropolitan Japan’s landscape, as well as the enthusiasm with which some, if not all, of those elements are embraced and repurposed by the populace. (Occasionally they’re just blithely accepted, like the junk fast food joints.) Wendy’s fish-out-of-water experience and Hiro’s black-sheep status are what bond them; she’s a stranger in a strange land, he’s a stranger in his own land, a country boy trying to prove himself as a rocker in Tokyo’s rocker scene. It’s telling that the scene where the pair grow closest is their trip to Hie Shrine, one of Tokyo’s esteemed shrines, where they leave omikuji and stroll down steps through stunning torii gates, practically glowing red.

It’s a beautifully filmed moment, and a rare beat where Tokyo Pop’s layers of othering are stripped away. Hiro is othered in his own home, a conflict resolved in a conversation with his grandfather (Taiji Tonoyama) while fishing; his dad (Makoto Fukuda) thinks he should get a real job, because that’s what dads do, and his mother (Masumi Harukawa) is overjoyed when he picks her brain about visiting the shrine. “I’m so happy!” she tells him. “You’re finally interested in Japan… instead of American things!” Wendy, meanwhile, takes a job hostessing at a karaoke joint, where she’s othered on account of her appearance, then othered further by singing karaoke, then othered further than that when the song happens to be “Home on the Range,” which she wouldn’t be caught dead singing in America. “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” suits her better, when she and Hiro duet after their meet-cute redux; it’s the song that cements their passion, and helps them get a leg up in Tokyo’s music business. 

The combination of free-spiritedness, musical fellowship, bemused culture comedy, and kindred hearts is seamless, paced with the sense that Kuzui has somewhere to be and a clear path to get there; Tokyo Pop moves briskly, a quality enhanced by the liveliness baked into Hamilton and Tadokoro’s chemistry. But the breeziness carries bittersweetness, too, the kind that weighs the heart down without smothering the high of falling in love in the first place. It’s a remarkable effect. We should all be thankful to feel it in our own lives, much less in theaters. 

Director: Fran Rubel Kuzui
Writer: Fran Rubel Kuzui, Lynn Grossman
Starring: Carrie Hamilton, Yutaka Tadokoro, Taiji Tonoyama, Masumi Harukawa, Makoto Fukuda
Release Date: August 4, 2023

Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers the movies, beer, music, and being a dad for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours. He has contributed to Paste since 2013. You can follow him on Twitter and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65% craft beer.