Monday, April 13, 2009
Inflight Entertainment: The New Way to See J-Cinema?
I've mentioned before that only a handful of the films that I've subtitled have ever gotten an English-friendly DVD release -- that's just the way it's worked out. In recent months I've had a few people contact me asking about where they can get DVDs of a couple titles, particularly Flavor of Happinesss (Shiawase no Kaori, 『しあわせのかおり』, see collected posts here). How do they know they want to buy it if they haven't seen it? Because they have seen it -- in an airplane.
As I reported previously, Hong Kong's Emphasis Media picked up rights in Cannes last year. Looking at their site, they have a growing library of Japanese titles. When they say "Worldwide except Japan" I assume they mean world inflight entertainment rights. I don't believe Emphasis releases their own DVDs but do they sub-license to HK video companies, or just stick to the global seat-back viewing market? Interestingly, it says the company was founded in 1972 in Tokyo, providing Japan Airlines with content. I see they have rights to K-20: Legend of the Mask (collected posts), too.
I'd guess selling to the world's airlines probably generates more money from Japanese titles than traditional sales do -- at least for smaller films.
Taiwan's AV-Jet is another Asian buyer of Japanese titles (only the Chinese language page works but you can see the poster images). They just picked up Sanpei The Fisher Boy (collected posts) when I was in Hong Kong.
On a flight to Toronto for the film festival last September, I was surprised by how current and varied the titles were (good or not is another question) on Air Canada. Worst lineup of films, Japanese or otherwise, I've ever seen? All Nippon Airways, and that was even in business class to Thailand (thank you air miles).
If anybody has their own in-flight J-cinema experience I'd like to hear about it.
9 comments:
I flew on the prime minister's plane for work a few times, and was surprised to see that the Japanese films shown onboard were ones still in the cinemas in Japan, and that the American movies were ones that hadn't made it to cinemas yet. No idea if the subtitling was done by a different outfit than those that do the final versions for theater/media release.
(I was also surprised that they even bothered subtitling the J. movies in English, since I was the only foreigner looking at the things and as a translator I had no problem watching them in the original.)
I was surprised to see Tokyo Sonata on Cathay Pacific the last time I flew in January, though the TV didn't do the film justice at all, so I turned it off as the third act began. I think Hana Yori Dango was on the flights going to opposite direction, but no way I wanted to sit through it again.
Just flown JAL from London to Tokyo and back and managed to see: Sway, K-20 (nice subtitles I thought!), Let's Get Married, Shonen Merikensack (spelling?), Pandemic, & Star Reformers.
Not bad as probably none of these will get a UK release.
PS. seeing you like James Ellroy, have you read David Peace's "Tokyo Year Zero" yet? You might find it interesting. He is a UK author but based in Tokyo I believe.
UK's Channel 4 recently broadcast 3 films based on Peace's 1970's and 80's Yorkshire based novels which were good as well.
A pretty good selection of titles from everyone ("Air Canada" is also currently showing Ikigami, see here).
Now, if there was a way to pay a small fee to enter planes sitting at the gate to watch this stuff you might have a cottage industry on our hands -- ugh.
Definitely heard of Tokyo Year Zero but haven't read it yet.
I went to Japan last year with Lufthansa but sadly the movie selection was dire, well, there were no Japanese films on the plane and they didn't have those mini individual entertainment systems for each passenger. Anyway, I'm flying with JAL this summer and I'm definitely looking forward to checking out their movies. Pleasantly surprised to find out that at the moment they have the first 2 20th Century Boys in their line-up (I saw the first one at the ICA here in London, can't wait to see the second one).
I flew Emirates last month and saw Flavor of Happiness.
Two months ago, I saw Tokyo Sonata on Air Canada.
I broke down and bought the Japanese-only DVD of Flavor of Happiness for my collection -- still hoping an English subtitled version will somehow magically be sold one day.
Canuckflyer -- Japanese DVDs are not cheap -- you must be a true fan. When I subtitle a film I usually end up watching it around 5 times -- in this case I didn't mind at all.
Hong Kong is the best bet for FoH. I'll find out from Toei if there's one in the works.
Definitely not cheap...JPY5000ish...but I like to collect DVDs...hehe.
...still short of some sort of resource that makes clear entries declaring where (*when?) japanese films have been licensed... TELA gives certification for HK releases, but doesn't tell is it's a viewing opportunity that needs a flight (not a cinema) ticket as entry...
btw : "ikigami" is on HK DVD in a week or so.
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