Synopsis
Big in Japan is a comedic rock-and-roll road movie about struggling Seattle rock band, Tennis Pro, who decide to sell their tour-van and head to Tokyo for one last shot at acceptance
2014 Directed by John Jeffcoat
Big in Japan is a comedic rock-and-roll road movie about struggling Seattle rock band, Tennis Pro, who decide to sell their tour-van and head to Tokyo for one last shot at acceptance
I would love to have loved this film. The band is great but the plot is as thin as paper. Check my review here!
I really wanted to like 'Big in Japan,' I really, truly did. It tells the story of a Seattle band that moves to Japan as a means to build a fan base. The music in this film is amazing, almost enough to make up for the film's noticeable faults. The acting and direction are, unfortunately, wildly inconsistent. There is the spark of a good film here, but that spark never fully ignites, falling prey to cliche by the film's third act.
William Lindus
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This turned out to be quite unusual. Apparently a real band made a movie based around culture shock in Japan in order to promote their music. This became obvious early on as the acting and dialogue was incredibly bad. The music sounded pretty generic to me (sorry guys), and if their goal was to make a quality film they probably shouldn't have made the audience sit through entire songs.
That being said, it was very interesting to see the footage of Japan and some of the novel aspects of exploring Tokyo for the first time. I think this would have been much better as a straight documentary, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
A great small indie film about Tennis Pro, a Seattle rock band's journey to Tokyo. Enjoyed it very much - review coming soon.
Reminiscent of the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night, this is a film about a real Seattle grunge band, "Tennis Pro" and their madcap misadventures in Tokyo. In the film, at least, they're portrayed as a tired veteran band given the opportunity to invigorate their careers by going to Japan where their kind of music might be appreciated. What ensues is a comic adventure, fish-out-of-water story where the three members of the band cavort entertainingly and gradually catch on with their audiences. I had never heard of this band, of course. But I did enjoy their energetic performances which delivered some nice songs (an impromptu cello solo by lead singer/bassist Peterson was especially poignant.) Obviously "Tennis Pro" the group can't…