I wasn't sure I was going to like this. It's a little dull to look at and the pace is painfully slow. Also kind of wanted to smack her over putting up with that guy!
I did wind up glad I persevered, though. That little twist at the end was unexpected and made this run a little deeper.
6 Reviews
Out with the old...
politic19836 February 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I'm currently reading Mark Schilling's latest book "Art, Cult and Commerce: Japanese Cinema Since 2000". Having previously read his earlier "Contemporary Japanese Film", one thing is perfectly clear: Schilling very much likes the cinema of Jun Ichikawa. I've only seen two Ichikawa films: the excellent "Tony Takitani", which I watched multiple times around thirteen or fourteen years ago; and "Tokyo Marigold", a film that I watched, but didn't really get into. The former no longer requires another chance, but the latter perhaps deserved a second outing.
Eriko (Rena Tanaka - who is not my wife) is a young woman somewhat lost in adult life. Working as a clerk for an out-of-the-ordinary Morris Minor dealership and garage - though her office appears more a British-theme cafe - she is drifting through her days of no sex and the big city. Around her, colleagues and friends appear more sure of themselves, going places with their lives, offering her friendly advice, job opportunities and chances at love.
Job opportunities come in the form of Miyashita (Yoichiro Saito), and old school friend she bumps into her on her Tokyo wanderings. Quickly, he asks her to appear in an unusual baseball commercial he is working on. This seems an empty promise. Meanwhile a work colleague offers her a chance at love. Invited to join a formal dating party, five eligible bachelors advertise their career prospects to the five young women sat opposite. It is at this party, when all is coming to an end, she bonds with the slightly older, but heavily drunk, Tamura (Yukiyoshi Ozawa). Clearly a step to the left from the rest of the group, Tamura asks for her details and she agrees to meet again while he is awake and vertical.
The pair meet and get on like the Tokyo skyline meeting the sunset, but Tamura is holding back. He reveals he has a girlfriend, the unseen Mayumi, who is away studying in the US for a year. The revelation takes the pressure off the couple, however, and there is no need to force anything. As such, romance blossoms.
Quickly, they get a flat together, under the agreement that, for a year, they will be a couple. But Eriko's life drifting on the wind is no more. She is now an adult having an affair. The twilight mood grows dark into the night, with Tamura unsheathing his drunk salaryman innards, neglecting his temporary girlfriend, as they live a lifelong relationship within the twelve month timeframe of his setting.
For a film that moves at a slow, steady pace in perpetual twilight, there is a lot of variety on offer. Ichikawa, a director of commercials by trade, mixes music videos and commercials into his tale. Ozuesque fixed camera cross-section shots of the pair's love nest are matched with a Shunji Iwai sense of modern day youthful ennui throughout. The soundtrack whistles along on the breeze, much like Eriko, though darker tones emerge once Eriko and Tamura's relationship becomes sexual.
This is very much modern Tokyo (despite being two decades old now). A Bubble Era spill-off facade of clean streets and skyscrapers are the backdrop to Eriko's wandering mind. This is a Tokyo of minimalism, full of new-build apartments furnished by MUJI, where coffee shops are the ultimate hangout. I'm sure the Tokyo 2020 organising committee would like to agree.
If that's the "Tokyo" of the title, the "Marigold" is the new replacing the old. At the house of her artist mother Ritsuko (Kirin Kiki), her uncle Kunio (Akira Terao) discusses the marigolds in the garden. And this ephemeral flower of short life cycle is the obvious homerun for Eriko's scenario: she was merely a substitute where love came with a sell-by date. On realising this, Eriko is once again drifting on the breezy soundtrack.
But it is not just Eriko's love life where the new replaces the old. Ichikawa shows a Tokyo fifty years on from Ozu's 1953 masterpiece; and Miyashita's commercial shows there is a lot to this Tokyo for the new millennium. "Tokyo Marigold", however, will not be a film held in such high regard.
A cruel twist at the end, however, shows how love's enforced deadline may have been the true facade all along. But this is not "Tokyo Evergreen". And while Tamura is left in tears, Eriko is left to think on, though now with a matured glint in her eye.
Come on. Let's play baseball...on the toilet?!
Eriko (Rena Tanaka - who is not my wife) is a young woman somewhat lost in adult life. Working as a clerk for an out-of-the-ordinary Morris Minor dealership and garage - though her office appears more a British-theme cafe - she is drifting through her days of no sex and the big city. Around her, colleagues and friends appear more sure of themselves, going places with their lives, offering her friendly advice, job opportunities and chances at love.
Job opportunities come in the form of Miyashita (Yoichiro Saito), and old school friend she bumps into her on her Tokyo wanderings. Quickly, he asks her to appear in an unusual baseball commercial he is working on. This seems an empty promise. Meanwhile a work colleague offers her a chance at love. Invited to join a formal dating party, five eligible bachelors advertise their career prospects to the five young women sat opposite. It is at this party, when all is coming to an end, she bonds with the slightly older, but heavily drunk, Tamura (Yukiyoshi Ozawa). Clearly a step to the left from the rest of the group, Tamura asks for her details and she agrees to meet again while he is awake and vertical.
The pair meet and get on like the Tokyo skyline meeting the sunset, but Tamura is holding back. He reveals he has a girlfriend, the unseen Mayumi, who is away studying in the US for a year. The revelation takes the pressure off the couple, however, and there is no need to force anything. As such, romance blossoms.
Quickly, they get a flat together, under the agreement that, for a year, they will be a couple. But Eriko's life drifting on the wind is no more. She is now an adult having an affair. The twilight mood grows dark into the night, with Tamura unsheathing his drunk salaryman innards, neglecting his temporary girlfriend, as they live a lifelong relationship within the twelve month timeframe of his setting.
For a film that moves at a slow, steady pace in perpetual twilight, there is a lot of variety on offer. Ichikawa, a director of commercials by trade, mixes music videos and commercials into his tale. Ozuesque fixed camera cross-section shots of the pair's love nest are matched with a Shunji Iwai sense of modern day youthful ennui throughout. The soundtrack whistles along on the breeze, much like Eriko, though darker tones emerge once Eriko and Tamura's relationship becomes sexual.
This is very much modern Tokyo (despite being two decades old now). A Bubble Era spill-off facade of clean streets and skyscrapers are the backdrop to Eriko's wandering mind. This is a Tokyo of minimalism, full of new-build apartments furnished by MUJI, where coffee shops are the ultimate hangout. I'm sure the Tokyo 2020 organising committee would like to agree.
If that's the "Tokyo" of the title, the "Marigold" is the new replacing the old. At the house of her artist mother Ritsuko (Kirin Kiki), her uncle Kunio (Akira Terao) discusses the marigolds in the garden. And this ephemeral flower of short life cycle is the obvious homerun for Eriko's scenario: she was merely a substitute where love came with a sell-by date. On realising this, Eriko is once again drifting on the breezy soundtrack.
But it is not just Eriko's love life where the new replaces the old. Ichikawa shows a Tokyo fifty years on from Ozu's 1953 masterpiece; and Miyashita's commercial shows there is a lot to this Tokyo for the new millennium. "Tokyo Marigold", however, will not be a film held in such high regard.
A cruel twist at the end, however, shows how love's enforced deadline may have been the true facade all along. But this is not "Tokyo Evergreen". And while Tamura is left in tears, Eriko is left to think on, though now with a matured glint in her eye.
Come on. Let's play baseball...on the toilet?!
a nice, well-made quiet romantic drama
kevinmatchstick1 July 2002
This is a quiet drama about Eriko (Rena Tanaka), a lonely young woman in Tokyo who is wandering aimlessly through her days, trying to find some meaning and happiness in her life. When invited to a kind of date party, she meets and gradually becomes interested in a man named Tamura (Yukiyoshi Ozawa). On their first date, however, he tells her that he has a girlfriend studying in America. Lonely and undeterred, she decides to ask him to stay with her for the one year until his girlfriend returns. He agrees, and they get together...but it's never that simple, is it...? I found Marigold to be an excellent movie; beautiful cinematography, understated (as opposed to melodramatic and overwrought) in both the directing style and in the performances. Using a storyline (and locations) that could've very easily resulted in the worst excesses of trendy dramas (see the recent "Reisei to Jonetsu no Aida" for a prime example), Ichikawa does a good job keeping everything down-to-earth and realistic. His Tokyo actually resembles a real, organic city that people live in, rather than the hyper-media urban playground that it's usually portrayed as. The people who live there actually feel like real people, and the principals resonate as people that I've actually seen and met. Ozawa does a good job as an awkward but slightly shifty young worker who doesn't really know what he wants, but he'll take what he can get right now; while Tanaka's performance shows her as an actress with real potential. I will definitely be seeking out more of her and Ichikawa's movies. While not *quite* a masterpiece - he loses a little bit for a couple of blatantly obvious product-placement scenes - it's still a great movie; a trendy drama done right. [Culture note - "Trendy dramas" in Japan are short-run romantic-drama equivalents of U.S. sitcoms, in that they often tend to feature formulaic plots, mediocre writing and acting, and attempt to tie into whatever is trendy at the moment. They are also nearly always set in Tokyo, with their stars living in and going to the most fashionable areas. (No offence to drama fans in the audience.)] Actually, the creeping trendy-dramaness lies in the DVD extras package, which includes a handy on-screen map of Eriko's Tokyo, complete with location profiles and links to scenes, or, if you turn on the special map feature and re-watch the movie, you can make icons appear that tell you where the place is (Ichikawa is understated enough that you often won't know where she is unless you've been there), and then you can click on said icons to be taken briefly out of the movie to the aforementioned location profiles. Basically what this adds up to is something of a dating guide to Tokyo. Gee, i wonder who the target audience is? (Certainly not me.) And then there's the "Hondashi" commercials...all 14 of 'em (Ichikawa's "day job," and the apparent sponsor of the movie). The subtitles are generally well-done, with only a few minor errors. Highly recommended for those with Region 2-capable players. (Special thanks to Mark Schilling for pointing me in the right direction.)
A Nutshell Review: Tokyo Marigold
DICK STEEL19 September 2007
Director-in-Attendance Ichikawa Jun was again present to introduce Tokyo Marigold, his 15th film. He shared that he had made films for 20 years, and tomorrow's screening of How to Become Myself is his 20th film, therefore he's been making about one film a year!
There are 3 movies to date that he had made containing the title "Tokyo" - Tokyo Lullaby, Tokyo Siblings, and Tokyo Marigold. He's born in Tokyo and has lived in the city ever since, and therefore liked it very much. The first two movies were nostalgia movies, based on the Tokyo of old, while today's movie is more contemporary and about today's Tokyo, tackling the life of a contemporary Japanese girl.
***
Based on a novel by Hayashi Mariko, Tokyo Marigold would currently rank as my favourite of 3 Jun Ichikawa movies I've seen to date. It's a contemporary look at modern day relationships, following the protagonist, Eriko Sakai (Rena Tanaka) in her very strange proposal and arrangement with Tamura (Yukiyoshi Ozawa).
Meeting in a blind group date, they start off as platonic friends, before dating casually, and while we know that Eriko is single and lonely (suspend your disbelief here, as if pretty women don't experience that sometimes?), Tamura is awaiting the return of his girlfriend from America. As we hear of horror stories involving long distance relationships and the relatively higher propensity to cheat on each other, Eriko and Tamura go deeper into their relationship and enter the next stage, except that their contract stems from a strange agreement that Eriko sets, that Tamura be her boyfriend for just one year, before his girlfriend returns to Japan.
It's hard to think that someone would already place a finite duration on a relationship, to put an end firmly in sight. In what could be to counter their loneliness experienced in a metropolitan city, this temporal relationship start to take its toil on both parties - one taking the other for granted, while the other trying her best to make the most of that one year. You wonder if such a relationship based on triviality would prevail, as it's something that seemed doomed from the very start to begin with.
But under Ichikawa Jun's direction, the surface is always very beautiful, and again some hallmarks which I thought made Tokyo Marigold extremely enjoyable to sit through, despite its darker undertones. It has an excellent soundtrack of pop tunes, and he managed to, given that it's somewhat an ode to the city he resides in, infuse scenes of everyday Tokyo, including familiar landmarks, without making them intrude forcefully into the narrative.
The strengths in the movie however, rests on 2 points in my opinion, otherwise it may seem like a typical modern day romance tale. First, a very brief scene involving baseball, and I liked how it was developed to provide that strong punch toward the end. Sometimes in life we get thrown a stinker, often not when we're anticipating it nor given a choice. What do you do? Catch it, make do what you can, and very quickly, toss a curveball back and move on. You will not be put down you say? Yes, and similarly that scene where Eriko watches herself in the ad, does provide that little uplifting feeling of hope. The other strength in the movie, is Rena Tanaka's portrayal of Eriko. The pixie-faced actress superbly brought out her frailty, struggles, and naiveness with much aplomb, that you can't help but to root for her, even though you know that her suffering is of her own making, based on a bad decision and choice made.
Tokyo Marigold's ending too was quite moving, containing a bittersweet ending, together with a sense of victory, yet with a tinge of that sorry feeling. It allows both camps - those who wishes for her to move on, and those who don't, avenues to interpret the events outside what was in the film, and in that aspect, satisfies whichever direction that floats your boat. But I would like to sit on the fence (maybe because of personal experience), that one knows and can speculate with great accuracy what had happened, look back, reminisce and appreciate that one year, and probably nothing more. In that sense, Tokyo Marigold worked for me, thoroughly.
There are 3 movies to date that he had made containing the title "Tokyo" - Tokyo Lullaby, Tokyo Siblings, and Tokyo Marigold. He's born in Tokyo and has lived in the city ever since, and therefore liked it very much. The first two movies were nostalgia movies, based on the Tokyo of old, while today's movie is more contemporary and about today's Tokyo, tackling the life of a contemporary Japanese girl.
***
Based on a novel by Hayashi Mariko, Tokyo Marigold would currently rank as my favourite of 3 Jun Ichikawa movies I've seen to date. It's a contemporary look at modern day relationships, following the protagonist, Eriko Sakai (Rena Tanaka) in her very strange proposal and arrangement with Tamura (Yukiyoshi Ozawa).
Meeting in a blind group date, they start off as platonic friends, before dating casually, and while we know that Eriko is single and lonely (suspend your disbelief here, as if pretty women don't experience that sometimes?), Tamura is awaiting the return of his girlfriend from America. As we hear of horror stories involving long distance relationships and the relatively higher propensity to cheat on each other, Eriko and Tamura go deeper into their relationship and enter the next stage, except that their contract stems from a strange agreement that Eriko sets, that Tamura be her boyfriend for just one year, before his girlfriend returns to Japan.
It's hard to think that someone would already place a finite duration on a relationship, to put an end firmly in sight. In what could be to counter their loneliness experienced in a metropolitan city, this temporal relationship start to take its toil on both parties - one taking the other for granted, while the other trying her best to make the most of that one year. You wonder if such a relationship based on triviality would prevail, as it's something that seemed doomed from the very start to begin with.
But under Ichikawa Jun's direction, the surface is always very beautiful, and again some hallmarks which I thought made Tokyo Marigold extremely enjoyable to sit through, despite its darker undertones. It has an excellent soundtrack of pop tunes, and he managed to, given that it's somewhat an ode to the city he resides in, infuse scenes of everyday Tokyo, including familiar landmarks, without making them intrude forcefully into the narrative.
The strengths in the movie however, rests on 2 points in my opinion, otherwise it may seem like a typical modern day romance tale. First, a very brief scene involving baseball, and I liked how it was developed to provide that strong punch toward the end. Sometimes in life we get thrown a stinker, often not when we're anticipating it nor given a choice. What do you do? Catch it, make do what you can, and very quickly, toss a curveball back and move on. You will not be put down you say? Yes, and similarly that scene where Eriko watches herself in the ad, does provide that little uplifting feeling of hope. The other strength in the movie, is Rena Tanaka's portrayal of Eriko. The pixie-faced actress superbly brought out her frailty, struggles, and naiveness with much aplomb, that you can't help but to root for her, even though you know that her suffering is of her own making, based on a bad decision and choice made.
Tokyo Marigold's ending too was quite moving, containing a bittersweet ending, together with a sense of victory, yet with a tinge of that sorry feeling. It allows both camps - those who wishes for her to move on, and those who don't, avenues to interpret the events outside what was in the film, and in that aspect, satisfies whichever direction that floats your boat. But I would like to sit on the fence (maybe because of personal experience), that one knows and can speculate with great accuracy what had happened, look back, reminisce and appreciate that one year, and probably nothing more. In that sense, Tokyo Marigold worked for me, thoroughly.
step backwards
VANCELEE2 August 2002
when i saw this film i was reminded of what my 7th grade english teacher taught me and that was every story needs a conflict. i mean there is so little of a plot, instead what you see is moods and atmospheres. i counted maybe one scene were there was any intensity at all, other than that it was just watching a cute little girl pout and smile.
Life in Tokyo - without all the trendy dorama hype
regi0n2fan2 July 2002
`Tokyo Marigold': Ichikawa Jun's `Tokyo Marigold(s)' is an uncomplicated but artfully rendered take on life in modern Tokyo from the eyes of a quiet, reserved young lady who seems to meander through her world as a spectator until she begins making some decisions on her own. The lead is a young O.L. named Sakai Eriko, played by Tanaka Rena (`Hatsukoi', `GTO', `Gangu Shuurisha'). Sakai comes from a somewhat unconventional family unit, consisting of her sculptor mother (Kiki Kirin) and a poet father living abroad in Spain. Her mother is fully engrossed in `creating', and therefore one gets the impression that they don't really function as the archetypal Japanese family. At a mixer coordinated by a former classmate at Soyo, Eriko meets Tamura, a shy, elite young salaryman played by Ozawa Masayoshi. Nothing major looks like it develops, but at the last minute Tamura gives Eriko his keitai bango. Finding herself lonely and bored, Eriko takes a chance and calls Tamura, and they begin dating, despite his admission that he has a girlfriend who is studying abroad in the U.S. As a compromise, Eriko asks Tamura to be her boyfriend for one year, until his girlfriend returns, and he agrees. Rather than the simple 12-month period itself, Ichikawa stresses the changes that Eriko undergoes in this compressed schedule, likening it to the French Marigold, which has but one year to bloom and then wither away. In a similar manner, Eriko's life blossoms from uneasy singleness to being quite happy (although often confused as to why) with her borrowed lover. But like the flower her social life is compared to, Eriko soon realises that her happiness has a predetermined and unavoidable ending. Ichikawa does a masterful job of tweaking and manipulating the story line to fully entertain and create a very down-to-earth yet satisfying ending.
Eriko is interesting because she initially denies that she is lonely, only to find herself convinced that she is truly, madly and deeply in love with Tamura and unwilling/unable to let him go at the predetermined time. At times she babbles and rambles, even when it is apparent that Tamura doesn't share the same feelings for Eriko, and she even questions herself when she waits hours for him in the lobby of a hotel. It is interesting that Ichikawa never lets us hear Tamura's answer when Eriko innocently asks him to be her boyfriend until Mayumi (his girlfriend) returns to Japan. This adds to the uncertainty in Eriko's fragile relationship, characterised by a sequence of dinner-time chatter about her coworker's habit of greeting her with a tangerine every morning - a desperately failed ploy to evoke any kind of affirmation from Tamura.
Tamura, in all fairness, is a real jerk. Not a totally bad guy, but no winner, either. Viewers will have to learn this for themselves, but throughout the movie he is the unchanging antithesis to Eriko's rapid evolution, an anechoic wall totally absorbing the love and liveliness projected its way and reflecting nothing. The viewer never feels sorry for him, and in fact, he shows very little of himself throughout the screenplay until the very end, at which point, the viewer may almost pity him, but eventually despise him. Enough said.
The background music throughout much of the film made it feel like the movie was part of an elaborate modern-day RPG video game, a la Uematsu Nobuo's soundtrack from the SquareSoft Final Fantasy series. Overall, `Tokyo Marigold' provides a charming performance by Tanaka Rena, and a superbly crafted screenplay by Ichikawa Jun. No flashy brand names or catchy theme songs, and no action scenes or long walks in the rain. Honestly, I can't figure out why I liked the film so much. Oh, maybe it was the Yakyu CM.
Finally, kudos to IMDb contributor "kevinmatchstick" for insisting that i watch this film.
Eriko is interesting because she initially denies that she is lonely, only to find herself convinced that she is truly, madly and deeply in love with Tamura and unwilling/unable to let him go at the predetermined time. At times she babbles and rambles, even when it is apparent that Tamura doesn't share the same feelings for Eriko, and she even questions herself when she waits hours for him in the lobby of a hotel. It is interesting that Ichikawa never lets us hear Tamura's answer when Eriko innocently asks him to be her boyfriend until Mayumi (his girlfriend) returns to Japan. This adds to the uncertainty in Eriko's fragile relationship, characterised by a sequence of dinner-time chatter about her coworker's habit of greeting her with a tangerine every morning - a desperately failed ploy to evoke any kind of affirmation from Tamura.
Tamura, in all fairness, is a real jerk. Not a totally bad guy, but no winner, either. Viewers will have to learn this for themselves, but throughout the movie he is the unchanging antithesis to Eriko's rapid evolution, an anechoic wall totally absorbing the love and liveliness projected its way and reflecting nothing. The viewer never feels sorry for him, and in fact, he shows very little of himself throughout the screenplay until the very end, at which point, the viewer may almost pity him, but eventually despise him. Enough said.
The background music throughout much of the film made it feel like the movie was part of an elaborate modern-day RPG video game, a la Uematsu Nobuo's soundtrack from the SquareSoft Final Fantasy series. Overall, `Tokyo Marigold' provides a charming performance by Tanaka Rena, and a superbly crafted screenplay by Ichikawa Jun. No flashy brand names or catchy theme songs, and no action scenes or long walks in the rain. Honestly, I can't figure out why I liked the film so much. Oh, maybe it was the Yakyu CM.
Finally, kudos to IMDb contributor "kevinmatchstick" for insisting that i watch this film.
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