My Darling is a Foreigner | My Darling is a Foreigner Online Watch | My Darling is a Foreigner Japanese Movie Watch Online Free | My Darling is a Foreigner (2010) Online | My Darling is a Foreigner Watch Online | My Darling is a Foreigner Movie Watch Online Free | My Darling is a Foreigner Japan (2010) Free Movie My Darling is a Foreigner Online Watch Japanese | My Darling is a Foreigner Movie Watch Online Free | Online My Darling is a Foreigner (2010) | My Darling is a Foreigner Watch Online | My Darling is a Foreigner Japan Movie Watch Online Free | Free Movie Online My Darling is a Foreigner (2010)
Cast and CrewCast: Mao Inoue, Jonathan Sherr,
Masato Irie, Takumi Bando,
Dante Carver, Patrick Harlan,
Daijiro Kawaoka, Jun Kunimura,
Ryôko Kuninaka
Director: Kazuaki Ue
Genre: Drama/Comedy
RunTime: 1 hr 40 mins
Released By: Encore Films & GV
Rating: TBA
Opening Day: 16 September 2010
Holywood movie online Japanese movie online Comedy movie Romantic movie online movie Review movie story Fantasy Movie Adventure Movie Japanese Movie My Darling is a Foreigner Movie My Darling is a Foreigner Directed By Kazuaki Ue
The Story:
Based on the best-selling manga sensation in Japan, MY DARLING IS A FOREIGNER tells the quirky story of a Japanese girl who meets and falls in love with an American guy. Saori (Mao Inoue) is an aspiring manga artist while Tony (Jonathan Sherr) is a language nerd obsessed with the Japanese language. The couple tentatively pursue their courtship, which is fraught with hilarious miscues, differing expectations and misunderstandings of each other’s culture. Can ‘international romances’ such as this have a happy ending?
My Darling is a Foreigner, Saori Oguri’s illustrated tales of her life with American husband Tony László, has been tough to avoid recently. First released in 2002 to modest acclaim, the series became a slow-burning success, eventually ratcheting up sales of more than 2.5 million copies. If you spent much time riding the JR over the past couple of years, you’ll probably recognize it from the animated clips that used to play on the train TV screens. The story is now poised to hit cinemas in a heavily promoted live-action movie starring Mao Inoue (Hana Yori Dango) and newcomer Jonathan Sherr.
The success has turned Oguri and László into one of Japan’s most high-profile international couples—albeit one whose cartoon likenesses are far better known than the people themselves. Well, at least it means they probably don’t get stopped for autographs when they go out to buy groceries.
My Darling is a Foreigner is no tell-all memoir, consisting rather of a series of gently comic episodes from the couple’s life together. It’s warm and likeable, if not terribly enlightening—the kind of thing that you should read for fun, rather than for insights into the realities of interracial marriage.
To coincide with the release of the film, Media Factory has issued an English version of the first volume of the series that’s translated by László himself. (Funny, that: in the afterword, Oguri explains that her then hubby-to-be had to stop reading the book after a few chapters, having found it all a little too close to the bone.) It’s pitched at English learners as much as at an overseas audience—the original Japanese text has been retained, and the chapters are interspersed with “Tony’s English School” sections in which László explains key language points.
This is entirely in keeping with the source material, which often does a better job of reintroducing Japanese readers to their own culture than in edifying them about foreign ones. A dedicated nihongo nerd, László bombards Oguri with obscure questions about Japanese (“What does the ‘yare’ in ‘yare aa shiro kou shiro’ mean?”), or befuddles her by grasping for fumu (stomp) when he really wanted fumikiri (railroad crossing). When she proposes a game of “acchi muite hoi”—that rock-paper-scissors follow-up in which you try not to look the same way your opponent is pointing—it reduces him to a nervous wreck.
Other parts of the book are likely to resonate better with a non-Japanese audience. László is depicted as a loveable oddball with a delicate sensibility and a passion for chocolate ice cream, one whose fluffy visage is compared at one point to an alpaca. When the couple go out for lunch together, he insists on asking for a different wine to replace the thin plonk that came with his set meal (and gets one that’s even worse). A discussion of whether humor is a cultural trait ends with Oguri realizing that “this guy laughs at anything.” The petty domestic tiffs over housework will be familiar to pretty much any couple.
“I suppose that, in the end, the kind of marriage you end up with is determined not by whether you marry a Japanese or a foreigner,” Oguri writes in the foreword, “but rather by the personalities of the two people involved, and how they are alike and different as individuals.” Fair enough—but why pick a title like My Darling is a Foreigner? Why not My Darling’s Name is Tony, My Darling Has a Beard, or My Darling is a Serial Scrimper and a Little Bit Eccentric?
My Darling is a Foreigner Movie Review:
A Tokyo Broadcasting System, Media Factory, Toho Co., Dentsu, Mainichi Broadcasting System, IMJ Entertainment, PPM, Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting, RKB Mainichi Broadcasting, Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Corp.,Yahoo Japan, Hokkaido Broadcasting Co., Tsutaya, East Japan Marketing and Communication production. (International sales: Tokyo Broadcasting System, Tokyo.) Produced by Osamu Kubota, Tamako Tsujimoto. Executive producer, Kazuya Hamana. Directed by Kazuaki Ue. Screenplay, Satomi Ohshima, based on the manga “Darin wa gaikokujin” by Saori Oguri.
With: Mao Inoue, Jonathan Sherr, Jun Kunimura.
Cross-cultural romance is put under the Nipponese microscope in the quaint romantic comedy “My Darling Is a Foreigner.” Based on a bestselling autobiographical manga by Saori Oguri, pic outlines the pitfalls and pleasures of a relationship between a Japanese woman and an American man. Set for an April local release, pic will find appreciative distaff fans among readers of the original manga and its travelogue sequels. Internationally, its appeal will be confined to Japan-themed fests.
Wannabe manga artist Saori (Mao Inoue) is besotted with Tony Lazlo (Jonathan Sherr), an English teacher residing in Tokyo. Fully assimilated, Tony speaks fluent Japanese and has an unwavering respect for local customs. Despite Tony’s Japanization, Saori’s father (Jun Kunimura) disapproves of the liaison. Script makes some amusing and accurate observations, but narrative tension flounders due to excessive fidelity to Oguri’s experience. Sherr has little to do but be sweet and understanding; Inoue is more rounded, but can’t transcend the script’s limitations. Occasional use of Oguri-style animation will appeal to the manga’s fans, but merely emphasize the charm that’s mostly missing. Helming and lensing are as flat as Sherr’s character. Tech credits are solid.
Camera (color), Hitoshi Kato; editor, Yoshinari Kogure; music, Tokio Noguchi; production designer, Ario Iwasaki, Hidefumi Hanaya. Reviewed at Hong Kong Filmart, March 23, 2010. Original title: Darin wa gaikokujin. Japanese, English dialogue. Running time: 96 MIN.
Watch Movie Trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment