by Mark Schilling
The Tokyo International Film Festival is many things to many people, but for local distributors it has long been an important promotional venue for their fall and winter line-ups, sometimes to the point of overshadowing the other ostensible reasons for the fest's existence. The 1997 edition of TIFF is best remembered for hosting the world premiere of Fox's big New Year's release, Titanic, with James Cameron and Leonardo DiCaprio in triumphant attendance. Meanwhile, the co-winners of the Tokyo Grand Prix -- Ademir Kerovic's The Perfect Circle and Caroline Link's Beyond Silence -- have been mostly forgotten by all but their makers.
As a barometer of distribution trends, TIFF's Special Screenings section is not perfect -- this year, for example, Shochiku has no films in the section, despite having titles in its end-of-the-year line-up, such Memoirs of a Geisha, that might benefit from the exposure. Even so, the section, which includes the opening and closing films, says something about not only the priorities of festival organizers, but distributor decisions as to what is hot and what is not.
For the fest's 2000 edition, both the opening film, The 6th Day, and the closing film, Charlie's Angels, reflected what was then the industry conventional wisdom: big Hollywood titles, however dubious the quality, drew the media and the crowds to what would have otherwise been an event for cinephiles. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- a local favorite for his appearances in TV commercials for an energy drink and a brand of instant ramen noodles, showed up on stage for five minutes, hundreds of cameras flashed and everyone, including distributor Toho-Towa, presumably went home happy. (Toho-Towa became even happier when the film grossed $15 million.).
What a difference half a decade -- and the rise of Japanese and Asian films at the local box office -- have made. The opening film of this year's TIFF is Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, a Japanese-Chinese co-production starring Japanese film icon Ken Takakura. The closing film is Song He-seong's Rikidozan, a Japanese-Korean co-production about a Korean-born pro wrestler who became a Japanese national hero in the 1950s. The title star, Sul Kyung-gu, may not be as big in Japan as Schwarzenegger was in his prime, but his films, including Peppermint Candy, Oasis and the 2003 actioner Silmido -- have been hits with Japanese fans, making him a natural casting choice. Distributor Sony Pictures Entertainment has scheduled a March 4 release in the Warner Mycal, Cinema T Joy and Tokyo Theater chains.
Hollywood has hardly disappeared from the Special Screenings, but the films are mostly on the artier side of the spectrum: John Madden's Proof, James Mangold's Walk the Line, Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes and Scott McGhee and David Siegel's Bee Season.
Meanwhile the titles in the section with the biggest box office potential are mostly Japanese and Korean, including Spring Snow, a romantic drama by hitmaker Isao Yukisada, whose Crying Out Love, In the Centre of the World grossed more than $80 million in 2004, Takashi Yamazaki's Always - Sunset on Third Street, a nostalgic family drama that Toho plans to release wide on November 5, and Synmpathy for Lady Vengeance, an actioner by Park Chan-Wook, whose JSA and Old Boy both enjoyed long runs in Japan.
Also, the big names walking down the red carpet prior to the opening ceremony this year were mostly Japanese and Asian, led by Zhang and Takakura, strolling side-by-side to cheers from the crowd.
They were not as loud as those for Leonardo, however -- and TIFF could probably use more of the same Hollywood star power that Cannes and Venice -- two of TIFF's role models -- hardly disdain. But the days when the fest would essentially cede control of its opening and closing slots, as well as much of its Special Section, to local distributors of commercial Hollywood product, now seem past.
One reason is that it wants to be taken more seriously , amidst stiffening regional competition, from the Busan festival and elsewhere, for prestigious titles.
Weakening Hollywood clout, though, is another. Arnold is no longer commanding multimillion dollar contracts for 15-second Japanese TV ads -- and the number of Hollywood stars getting such deals is trending to zero. It not that Japanese ad agencies are no longer making such deals, but the biggest beneficiary is now Bae Yong Joon, the Korean megastar who has made millions of Japanese women weak at the knees, most recently for his hit romantic drama April Snow. Bae has yet to walk down the TIFF red carpet -- but if he did all the riot police in Tokyo wouldn't enough to save him from the mobs of adoring fans. Leonardo, eat your kimchee out.
