Tokyo Eyes
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| Tokyo Eyes | |
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| Directed by | Jean-Pierre Limosin |
| Produced by | Kenzo Horikoshi Hengameh Panahi |
| Written by | Jean-Pierre Limosin Santiago Amigorena Philippe Madral Yuji Sakamoto |
| Starring | Shinji Takeda Hinano Yoshikawa Kaori Mizushima Tetta Sugimoto Ren Osugi Masayuki Yui Takeshi Kitano |
| Music by | Xavier Jamaux |
| Cinematography | Jean-Marc Fabre |
| Editing by | Danielle Anezin |
| Distributed by |  Lumen Films Euro Space |
| Release date(s) | Sept. 9,1998 October 24, 1998 February 17, 1999 March 5, 1999 |
| Running time | 90 mins (France cut) 98 mins (int'l version) |
| Language | Japanese |
Tokyo Eyes is a 1998 French-Japanese thriller/romance film, starring Shinji Takeda and Hinano Yoshikawa, directed by French film/documentary maker Jean-Pierre Limosin. It was selected for the '98 Festival de Cannes into the Un Certain Regard category.
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[edit] From Paris Eyes to Tokyo Eyes
At first, the Tokyo Eyes original script was written like a traditional French film, with local cast and crew and the movie had to be shot in Paris. However, the director suddenly changed his mind and decided to shoot it in Japan with a Japanese cast.
The director and the chief-operator, both French, did not speak Japanese but they decided to take the challenge anyway and accepted to work with a Japanese cast and crew.
The casting for the two main characters, K and Hinano, took three months but finally Jean-Pierre Limosin chose two famous tarento (TV personalities), Shinji Takeda (b.1972, Sapporo, Hokkaidō) and Hinano Yoshikawa (b.1979, Tokyo, Honshū).
In 1998, Takeda had previously played in five films including A New Love in Tokyo (Ai no shinsekai) and Shichi-nin no otaku: cult seven. He was an experienced TV series actor already playing in seventeen series broadcasted on Fuji TV, TBS and TV Asahi. He also appeared on some variety shows.
Hinano Yoshikawa is a fashion model since the age of 14, she is also a singer and a young cinema actress who made her debut the year before in Moonlight Serenade (瀬戸内ムーンライトセレナーデ). She also debuted in TV series and appeared in variety shows.
[edit] Plot
In Tokyo Eyes, K (Shinji Takeda, 26), a young Japanese debugger and free-lance programmer (also Techno LPs collector on his free time), has invented him an upholder of the law alter ego who acts like a serial killer, randomly shooting at ordinary people and bringing terror in Tokyo.
Quickly, the repeated attacks are mentioned by the local medias, and the killer is nicknamed Four Eyes (Le Bigleux in the original version, lit. "the poor-sighted") by the metropolitan police for he was described by witnesses as wearing thick-lensed glasses.
Hinano (Hinano Yoshikawa, born Ai Takeda, 19), a seventeen maiden got a part time job (arubaito) as hairdresser, she lives with Roy, the police officer (Tetta Sugimoto, 33) in charge of the Four Eyes file. One day she notices a shady young man in the subway and decides to follow him. After losing him from sight a first time, she will ask her senpai colleague Naomi (Kaori Mizushima, 34) to join her investigation on the strange young man.
One day she finally mets the man, and they quickly become friendly. He invites her to his apartment and share his hobbies, trance and video games with her. At first, Hinano is suspicious, but days after days she will be fascinated by him, and will finally get seduced leading to a romance with the unconventional young man.
By that time, the Four Eyes still strikes in Tokyo, and Roy's investigation does not evolve that much. When trying to help Roy, Hinano will soon discover that her new boyfriend and the Four Eyes file are actually connected.
Hinano gave K a new look, but she didn't made him change his behavior nor his Four Eyes tendencie.
After catching K in red-handed she has no doubt anymore about his Four Eyes double-personality and ran away from him, as she's totally afraid.
Later she met him again, and he confesses her his true motive, which is not really what Hinano expected, so she forgives him. She even tries to cover him vis-à-vis Roy's investigation. As she was ready to start a relationship afresh with K, she will be rejected by him without further explanations.
What Hinano ignores, is K was recently visited by a simple-minded wannabe yakuza (Beat Takeshi) who came to buy K's handgun, but had accidentally fired in K's lower abdomen injuring him badly.
In the last sequence, later Hinano walks downtown and randomly meets K, in a crowded street, who recognizes her and grab her hand and smiles at her.
The meaning of this end can seems ambiguous, since the previous sequence showed K suffering and bleeding as he tries to commit suicide by crossing a speedway, while this last sequence shows his face only, smiling. It should be pointed that the international version, including the Japanese one, features seven minutes of additional footages, and possibly a more explicit ending compared to the original cut.
[edit] Guest stars and cameo appearances
[edit] Beat Takeshi
What probably helped the popularity of this French-Japanese independent movie among the niche of Japanese cinema enthusiasts, is possibly the cameo of the famous Beat Takeshi (aka Takeshi Kitano) featured in both the trailer and the movie poster, and adding Tokyo Eyes to Kitano's official filmography.
Not only, Jean-Pierre Limosin did an homage to Takeshi Kitano in his 1998 movie, but he also directed a 68mins documentary dedicated to him the following year as Takeshi Kitano, l'imprévisible ("Takeshi Kitano the unpredictable").
[edit] Ren Osugi
Another Japanese veteran actor which is often associated with Kitano, Ren Osugi, also made a cameo in Tokyo Eyes, as an antipathetic bus driver. Osugi earned an acting award at Cannes Film Festival the year before for his performance in HANA-BI, as another antipathetic character, a role he often played as yakuza or policeman, e.g. in Sonatine and Postman Blues.
[edit] Fumiya Tanaka
The DJ who enters K's apartment and plays a trance vinyl, Insistence by Fumiya Tanaka, is actually Tanaka, a worldwide famous Japanese artist, and a celebrity in his homeland. He had created the first Japanese Techno tracks label, Torema Records, in 1993. The other techno track featured in Tokyo Eyes, is I tought 3, but were 4 in fact (Hamburger mix), a classic trance number by Takkyu Ishino.
[edit] Reference to other films
[edit] A Woman is a Woman
A Tokyo Eyes sequence with Hinano wearing an umbrella is a reference to a scene in Jean-Luc Godard's 1961 romance-comedy Une Femme est une femme. Hinano is dressed the same way as Anna Karina, playing Angéla, and wears an umbrella like in the French Nouvelle Vague classic.
[edit] Tokyo Decadence
One of the latest and sexiest scenes in Tokyo Eyes shows Hinano mimicing Ai's sexy moves on the window in reference to a scene in Topaz. This Ryu Murakami 1991 erotic drama is better known as Tokyo Decadence.
[edit] Awards
- Best debuting actress award (Hinano Yoshikawa) at the Japanese Professional Movie Awards 1999.
