New Japanese movie titles on DVD reviewed in English.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Each one of the movies we review are available on DVD with English subtitles. You can buy them easily at CD Japan.

Hi wa Mata Noboru

Released: 12.20.02
Item no: JVBF-52001
Price: ¥5200
Click here to buy it.

Taku: This week we're reviewing "Hi wa Mata Noboru", a movie about the guys who developed the VHS video technology. The alternative English title is "Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS".

Tomo: And by no coincidence, the movie is released by Victor/JVC, the same company that invented the technology.

Taku: Does anyone besides me find it ironic that we watched the movie on DVD? The DVD was even released before the VHS version. I suppose it's just a sign of the times though. We all know how important VHS tapes were.

Tomo: It could be said that Victor just made this movie as propaganda, reinforcing the company's prestige (and perhaps Japan's as well) by reminding us all about the great things they've made. Nevertheless, the story of how the company invented VHS turns out to be a story dramatic enough to base a movie on. I had no idea of the VHS format's humble beginnings, or how much turmoil was involved in its development until I saw this movie.

Taku: Like any movie based on a true story, they probably took some liberties here and there in order to make the movie more interesting, but nevertheless it was based on a true story. It follows the story of Shizuo Kagaya, an aging salary man who works in the development section at the Tokyo branch of Victor and is nearing retirement. He is soon relocated to the Yokohama branch of Victor, where he becomes the supervisor of a ragtag testing and maintenance division.

Tomo: One day Kagaya gets the idea to make a home video recorder and decides to drop what his division is supposed to be doing in order to develop the new machine, unbeknownst to his superiors at headquarters. This leads to the eventual creation of the VHS video format and its release on the home video market, despite many obstacles along the way. At many points in the movie, it looked like VHS would never come to fruition. Of course we all know now the significance of these events, and this gives weight to the events of the movie, pulling viewers in with its true historical significance.

Taku: I found this movie to be everything you would expect it to be. Some guys work on a project that seems doomed from the start, and against all odds they pull through. Sound familiar? This movie just didn't surprise me. I thought they would do more to dress it up and make it unique, but they didn't.

Tomo: It was exactly what I was expecting too, but I still enjoyed it. Sure, it is just a story about starchy Japanese salary men and their development of a piece of electronics, but the movie kept me well-entertained throughout with its drama. It seemed the battle to bring VHS to market was never over, and the ride was an exciting one for me. I guess if you really can't stand watching a bunch of boring middle-aged men go about their business, this movie isn't for you, because that's exactly what the entire movie is.

Taku: No it isn't. They try to bring to bring other stuff into the story too. Like the drama Kagaya's family... It just wasn't well-developed. We hardly see these characters, then toward the ending the movie tries to focus in on them more as if we're supposed to care. It all just seemed very tacked on. I was just wondering when the movie would give it up and end. It was a very simple story, stretched out and bulked up with unnecessary events like that. When it comes down to it, it's just a very simple, relatively uneventful story, and you could tell they tried to water it down as much as they could in order to give it more length.

Tomo: I suppose the parts involving the outside characters were a bit tacked-on, but it certainly didn't ruin the movie for me. Yes, it goes through the standard movie plot progression of any strive-and-succeed story, but the main point is to show the drama involved in the electronics development. I don't know about you, but I can't say I've ever seen a film about the development of a piece of electronic equipment, and that alone was enough to make it feel like a fresh idea to me.

Taku: Oh, it was very cool that it was about the people who invented VHS. Fascinating. The movie just didn't do it for me. Nothing, beyond maybe the geeky technical and historical stuff, excited me. The movie tried. Like the scene where one of the company's buildings caught fire. It had the potential for excitement, it was just brief and didn't really go anywhere. The main character tried to save some boxes and the other guys tried to pull him back. That's all.

Tomo: In the 1/2 hour behind the scenes feature on the DVD, you could see that they actually had to light a real building on fire in order to make that scene. It looked pretty dangerous, but made for some very realistic-looking results. It was just a brief scene though. Hardware geeks may appreciate the tech part, but that isn't all this movie has to offer. What about the battles they had with the big wigs at Victor, and with the other two companies, Sony and Matsushita? First they had to lie to the upper divisions at Victor so they could develop the VHS, then even after they got the go ahead from them and mastered the VHS player, getting the technology to market still took herculean efforts from the main characters, despite the fact that they clearly had a good product.

Taku: Sony had already launched its Betamax tapes, but they only recorded up to an hour of footage. The focus for Kagaya's team was getting the recording time up to two hours, because they knew that's what consumers wanted. (Funny though that they never mentioned that in retrospect, the quality of Beta was better than VHS, even though Beta ultimately loses the battle.) The battle between Sony and Victor got very heated. A very evil character representing Sony pays Victor a visit at one point in the movie and threatens them to accept the beta format.

Tomo: Tensions between the companies, as well as tensions between the employees in Kagaya's division cause many arguments and physical brawls in the movie. It seemed like people were constantly ready to explode into a vicious fight throughout the whole movie.

Taku: The dramatic saga of how VHS came to be (and almost didn't) was interesting, but it just didn't make the movie for me. Outside of Kagaya, and maybe right-hand man, Okubo, the character development just wasn't quite there. I mean, we learn his son is into music, and is rather unresponsive to his father in a typical teenage sort of way. Later he has to deal with a family crisis, and his time in the spotlight is very brief. It was just like, "why bother?"

Tomo: Yeah. The movie focuses primarily on the few main characters, and doesn't give much time to anyone else. That was fine with me since it only allowed for further development of the main characters. His family was shown because they had to show them, but I don't really want to know much more about them than what was shown.

Taku: What about the scene where the two main characters are driving in a car? That was character-buidling of the main characters, and I didn't have any need for that either. That was what really made the ending drag.

Tomo: I thought it was very important for those two characters to get to know each other on a more personal level. They had worked together in such close proximity for the entire movie, but their relationship up to that point had been strictly on a cold business level. The car scene was a perfect opportunity for the movie to force the two characters into developing a deeper relationship with each other. Unfortunately, I thought the car effects looked really fake in this movie, especially when it showed both the characters in the car from the wide shot. The background looked bad, and it just didn't look like they were really on the road.

Taku: Heh heh. The car scene. You seemed more bothered by it than I did. But I admit it did look like a car scene in a sitcom when they showed the wide shot. Otherwise, it seemed to work. That just seemed cheap for a movie of this scale. You're right, they did need to get to know each other, and the way Okubo warmed up to Kagaya toward the ending was good. That was some of the only good character development in the movie. Better than the family, at least, were some of the more minor characters who worked at the testing and repairs department. Like the guy who left and went to Matsushita to help develop Laserdiscs. I still just found the car scene intrusive because it was a sudden long scene after an entire movie of short scenes.

Tomo: Beyond Kagaya, Okubo, and Eguchi, there are no characters who undergo any considerable development worth mentioning. Many other faces appear, but none of them are significant to the main plot of the movie. The focus of the movie is small, and the ending was a bit cheesy. I don't see any other way they could have ended it though, and the ride up to that point was an exciting one.

Taku: No excitement, no ride. Just a predictable ending, and a rather dumb one at that. The movie seems to expect you to feel really happy at the ending, but it's just too forced. This movie isn't that bad, but offers no surprises. I'm going to give it a six just because I think it's cool that they attempted to make a movie about the invention of VHS tapes at all in the first place.

Tomo: It could be seen as a propaganda movie, and I know it isn't for everyone, but I like this movie, and I'll give it a medium-high recommendation with an eight.

Tomo's Rating: 8

Taku's Rating: 6

Director: Kiyoshi Sasabe
Cast: Toshiyuki Nishida, Kyoko Mano, Ken Watanabe
Running time: 108 minutes
Subtitles: English

Buy it here.