I’ve written before about the incestuous cultural relationship Japan shares with America (for example, with Jero [here and here] and Monkey Majik [here]). This theme basically consumes my work (and might academically in the future, as I’m planning a potential track of research based around a comparison of cultural clash of consumer/popular culture for Meiji Japan and post-war Japan).

I’m glad to see a new development along these lines, especially one that I can discuss briefly.

Trailer for Japan.

If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, the trailer for Lasse Hallström’s new movie, Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, has recently been passed around the major OMG-Japan link sites (like Japanator).

If you don’t know the story behind Hachiko, you can read up on the most loyal dog in the history of forever at Wikipedia. The tale is simple: a dog waits for his owner, a professor at the University of Tokyo, every day near Shibuya’s train station. When the owner dies, the dog keeps waiting. The story of Hachiko is infamous in Japan — the result of an article published in a national newspaper by one of the professor’s former students — and might be equivalent to, say, the story of Paul Revere (for Americans), as a piece of cultural history in the minds of the Japanese. Hachiko has even become an idiom of sorts, known primarily as 忠犬ハチ公 (loyal dog Hachiko), and the dog has an annual ceremony dedicated to him, held at his statue in Shibuya Square.

Photographed in Shibuya, October 2008

Looking at this trailer, though, the film immediately caused a bit of confusion. It’s an English-language movie based on a real Japanese story marketed first to a Japanese audience (with a later release to an American audience) with a trailer in Japanese but requiring Japanese subtitles. I can work around the lingual barriers present here, but — c’mon — it’s a bit circuitous.

On top of the linguistic clash, there’s also the problem of the movie as produced. The qualifying prerequisite to explaining said problem is to understand that a movie was already made in Japan.

Clips from the original Japanese film, 1987.

Hollywood remakes movies a lot, and while there are critics of multiple versions of the same film, we can’t outright denounce this film based on an earlier (potentially better) Japanese counterpart. However, the fact that Hachiko is filmed in America with an American cast produces the problem: the story of Hachiko is placed into an American context.

Trailer for United States.

After watching the American trailer, I hope you can understand what I mean by “American context.” This second trailer disregards the origins of the story, and I am frankly surprised that it didn’t state something along the lines of “A real story based on the popular Japanese tale.” The movie was filmed in Connecticut, and it obviously ignores the Shibuya locale (replacing it with Bedridge Station), the name of the professor, etc. From the trailer, it seems that the film ignores the Japanese side of the story altogether. It’s a remake, and poetic license like this is never discouraged. However, I wonder how many members of the American audiences will question the name of the dog, Hachiko (or, here, Hachi). It’s very Japanese sounding, plain and simple. Would the Japanese association minus the Japanese context create a barrier for a non-Japanese viewer?

In comparison, the Japanese trailer presents a much different film. I especially want to highlight the song (with Japanese lyrics) that plays in the second half of the trailer. The first words we hear are 忘れないよ、忘れないよ (don’t forget, don’t forget), which parallel Hachiko’s thoughts of his owner, but also reflect and emphasize the historical context that underlies the film (Japanese people have not and will not forget about this dog and his story). I assume that Japan will receive an early release of this movie solely because Hachiko remains such a cultural figure there, and the producers are trying to bank on the story’s popularity. However, I also wonder if the English-language and American actors will distance Japanese viewers from connecting directly and emotionally with the movie.

Going back to America, I must question the retention of the Akita dog breed, at least when presented to the American audience. Bluntly, I laud the directors for not changing the breed. However, Akitas (and Shibas, since the puppy in the film is actually a 柴犬) are so rare to see in the States that I wonder if it even makes sense to import the Hachiko story with an American context, particularly when there’s already competition with Bolt, Homeward Bound, Milo & Otis, and especially Lassie (though Hachiko’s popularity preceded Lassie’s by at least 5 years). Perhaps pet-movie obsession has fizzled out by now though, maybe even provoked by What I guess I’m trying to say in this last point is that, in Japan, Shiba dogs are EVERYWHERE, so I think Japanese will take to the dog fairly easily, while there might be some hesitance on the part of Americans.

I don’t mean to demean the movie, and I certainly hope that more Americans will take the time to look up the story of Hachiko with the film’s release. However, I don’t want people to regard this film as “the next Airbud.”

Oh, and if you check out the film’s Japanese site (there’s no English one), Richard Gere from the side looks like an authentic おじいさん (old man).