jasongray

Tokyo Loco Locations

After my previous post about Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void (Soudain le vide) being selected for competition in Cannes, I downloaded some high-res images from the film's official site. When I inspected one of them, reproduced below, I thought to myself "I recognize that dump".

It's the crumbling husk of an old love hotel in Shinjuku's Kabukichô district called Hotel Rakuen ("paradise"). It's walking distance from the place where the Nippon Connection "virtual bar" event was held (see my April 21 entry). I was able to dial it up on Google Maps and grab a street view of the location (second image). As you can see, very little set dressing needed to be done! If you click on the image you can explore ura-Kabukichô's streets of shame on your own. I previously posted about this functionality last summer, highlighting a few movie-related spots.





Many of the productions shot in Tokyo or other major Japanese cities (e.g. Osaka in Ridley Scott's Black Rain) by directors who haven't actually lived in Japan end up honing in on very fetishistic and/or clichéd locations -- I don't even need to list them. To be fair, many Japanese terebi dorama themselves are guilty of this. Are we worried with a filmmaker like Noé? I don't think so. He could shoot a whole film on Takeshita-dôri or the Shibuya intersection and it would feel relevant because of what his characters go through.

Talking at length with writer-director Max Mannix, whose movie Rain Fall opened yesterday, it was interesting to hear how the original rokehan ("location hunting") outing took him to places like Shiodome and various Mori buildings -- silly spots for an assassin like John Rain to be seen hanging around. The finished film presents Tokyo in an altogether different style. Rain Fall offers a unique mix of back alleys, docks, tiny bars, a luxurious Westernized mansion, a dilapidated safe house and a high-tech control room, not to mention some stunning aerial shots.

Update: Reader Raku posts some links in the comments that reveal the above hotel location was also used in Map of the Sounds of Tokyo. Another blow to Tokyo location originality. Both films are in competition at Cannes. lulz.

Posted by Jason Gray at 4/26/2009 06:58:00 PM