Director: Joshua Woodcock
Writers: Joshua Woodcock
Stars: Reza Emamiyeh, Tokiko Kitagawa
Synopsis: Betrayal spawns an unexpected night through the streets of Tokyo for two strangers left questioning the meaning of life and love.
Is romance going out of style? This was the first thought I had while watching One Night in Tokyo, the latest film from director Joshua Woodcock about identity, loneliness, and communication in fast-paced, modern cities. In this film, Japan is the background to Sam’s (Reza Emamiyeh) loneliness as he is ditched by his girlfriend when he sets foot in a country he knows nothing about,Tokyo to be precise. Sam then goes to pick up his friend’s girlfriend, Ayaka (Tokiko Kitagawa), the polar opposite of him, and as they navigate the ever-bustling city together, something changes as they navigate one another rather than the city itself.
The intimacy and the coziness of the film will strike a chord with many modern viewers. As it is available now on VOD and digital, it’s not simply a Valentine’s Day special, but a reflective film on the state of modern dating, specifically finding and losing love in overactive cities. While Sam may not seem as relatable, Ayaka has that modern girl vibe about her that makes her both a compelling and an interesting character to follow. Both Kitagawa and Emamiyeh do a great job of portraying the nuances and complexities of their characters, though. Emamiyeh plays more on the internal, his reactions are held back and his emotions are restrained. It suits the character; the lonely, “nice guy” traveling to a foreign country only to have his heart crushed by his mean girlfriend. Kitagawa plays the vibrant local. She embodies the free spirit of someone navigating their own city with confidence and jubilance until she meets a grim surprise, and even her reaction is more externalized, her anger palpable and visible. It’s evident how the off-screen harmony has seeped into the on-screen magic and the result is two characters that viewers slowly warm up to their presence, just as they find themselves time after time.
Films about lonely people falling in and out of love in busy cities are not new. We’ve all had our In The Mood For Love, Past Lives, and Paris, Texas moments. So does this premise work here? The answer is complex. For starters, One Night in Tokyo is its own demon, it operates on its set of rules and filmworld logic. But it feels trapped in the same realm that other films from that particular subgenre, lonely lovers meet in busy towns, without adding any unique angle or spark of its own. There is, of course, the keen interest that Woodcock gives to the Japanese cast, and the emphasis on the agency of the female Japanese character so that it’s not all a White man’s quest in the big, orientalist Western version of a country. It’s not two White people loving one another while the foreign country works as a background to the emotional shared experience like in Lost in Translation.
Simple creativity within a formulaic genre does not a great film make, and Woodcock smartly sticks to all the proper elements of making a similar story about well-established themes without veering into innovation that may strip the film of its rightful place in said category. This may take from the surprise element that one may secretly desire tuning into a film like that, but it also creates the proper ambience, especially given how the two attractive actors take the script and turn it into a proper, casual dialogue between two lonely people sitting in a bar.
In this feature, both Sam and Ayaka retain their agency, and have a command of their situation. Their connection is mutually held by their clinging to their linguistic otherness from one another, Sam’s English to Ayaka’s Japanese. The most important scene of the film unfolds into two lonely people in a bar, rambling to themselves while no one understands the other, and their language barrier stands between them like a mountain of misunderstandings. It is only when Sam decides to use a phone application for voice translation, that the walls between them start melting, and their barriers shake as they realize how more in common they are rather than different.
One Night in Tokyo is a subtle reassuring comfort movie, a too-slow burn at times, but the chemistry between the leads is highly rewarding.
