What an absolute joy that this film has been rescued from obscurity. For thirty-five years, Tokyo Pop was basically impossible to see—after its distributor went bankrupt, the 35mm prints vanished and the film became one of those whispered-about indie gems that you’d only hear about from people who caught it at Cannes in 1988. The fact that we can watch it now, in gorgeous 4K, feels like a minor miracle.
And what a film to save. The film is really anchored by its star, Carrie Hamilton, who is magnetic in this. From the moment she appears as Wendy, a bleach-blonde punk singer stuck doing backup in her lousy boyfriend’s band, she commands the screen with this raw, restless energy that makes her completely believable as someone who’d steal her ex’s rent money and hop a plane to Tokyo on a whim. There’s nothing calculated about her charisma—it’s pure presence.
And the chemistry with Diamond Yukai! They’re adorable together. The love hotel scene where everything goes wrong because of mixed signals and language barriers is hilarious, but when they finally connect—harmonizing together, wandering through Hie Shrine, singing “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman” at an audition—it’s pure magic. The moment when Wendy starts locking into harmony with Hiro unprompted is the kind of thing that makes you understand why people fall in love through music.
Fran Rubel Kuzui made something quietly radical here. This was years before Lost in Translation, and while that film gets all the credit for capturing gaijin alienation in Tokyo, Tokyo Pop does something different and arguably more honest—it shows the mutual fascination and cultural exchange without the melancholy distance. Kuzui, who’d been living between New York and Tokyo since 1977, gives us bubble-era Tokyo as she might have experienced it—love hotels, karaoke bars, Mickey Mouse hostels, rockabilly clubs, and struggling musicians trying to make it. She’d go on to pluck the Buffy the Vampire Slayer script out of a pile and direct that 1992 cult classic, launching a franchise and proving she had an eye for offbeat material with staying power.
The movie fits neatly alongside Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains and Smithereens—that same scrappy energy, the same fascination with women clawing their way through male-dominated music scenes, the same refusal to make its heroine too likable or too polished. But where those films give us New York City grit and toughness, Tokyo Pop has a lighter touch, a sweetness that matches its setting. It’s punk spirit with a pop heart. Keith Haring did the title artwork (he apparently just gave Kuzui his drawings and said “use them”), and those vivid opening credits over Diamond Yukai belting out “Blue Suede Shoes” set the tone perfectly. And keep your eyes peeled for an uncredited X Japan cameo—they appear in a scene where Wendy’s looking to join a band, years before they became legends.
That this restoration exists at all is thanks to Carol Burnett (Hamilton’s mom) and Dolly Parton, who helped fund the restoration through IndieCollect’s Jane Fonda Fund for Women Directors after the original sound elements were discovered in a lab that had been bought by MGM (who had nothing to do with the film!). It’s a real independent film story, as Kuzui put it.
Hamilton died in 2002 at thirty-eight from lung cancer. She never saw the revival of interest in this film, never knew that decades later people would be writing about how breezy and bittersweet and alive her performance is. Diamond Yukai said in an interview that he still hasn’t healed from her death, that she taught him English on set, that she felt like a soul mate. You can feel that genuine connection on screen, and it completely makes the movie.
see this review on letterboxd.