From "The Last Samurai" to "Tokyo Vice": The Evolution of East-West Storytelling
We've come a long way... but there's still more to do.
My immense enjoyment of Max’s Tokyo Vice, which just ended its second season, was a rather surprising — and positive — full-circle landing from my decidedly less enthusiastic reaction to another East-West vehicle that also starred Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai. While the latter premiered over twenty years ago, it was difficult not to compare it to this new series. In a world that seems daily teetering on the edge of chaos and discord, I am glad that at least one storytelling corner has become a better place in the past two decades. Allow me to expand.
Tokyo Vice, a noir-thriller set in 90’s Tokyo, revolves around the story of an American journalist’s experience in the world of Japanese organized crime. A cast of truly memorable characters surrounding this Japanese underworld has deftly avoided the all-too-familiar White Savior trope that has either consciously or subconsciously influenced most East-West attempts in storytelling.
Although the story generally revolves around the two young American protagonists, an up-and-coming reporter and mama-san, respectively, neither were messianic saviors who were going to show the Japanese how it’s really done, nor were they brash cultural dumbasses who did not consider the local culture important or relevant enough to assimilate themselves. Together with a well-rounded, complex group of Japanese characters — the wily cop who is tough as nails on the beat and putty in the hands of his young daughters, the young up and coming Yakuza, the courageous editor with a secret shame — help the audience enter a fresh, interesting, compelling world that was not lost in translation, but found in integration.
Yes, the American characters were the lenses through whom many were introduced into this world, but that quickly gave rise to a three-dimensional world in which they all inhabited equitably, compellingly, and accurately, culminating in a victorious cross-cultural work of considerable depth and beauty.
As both a producer and creator who toiled for years in the East-West content co-production business, and an Asian American who cares about proper representation in both parts of me, I want to applaud the Tokyo Vice team on this immense accomplishment. The real compliment here is that it has achieved the rarest of rare success in this milieu, success both in Western markets as well as the East. Japanese audiences also enjoyed this excursion into their world and culture and embraced the story as well. This pushes back on an industry adage to choose your audience when addressing cross-cultural topics, as the twain shall never meet. But as I alluded at the top, things weren’t always so.
This brings me to The Last Samurai. Tom Cruise plays a disgraced and morally corrupt American soldier who, through pretty miraculous circumstances, would forcefully enter pivotal moments in Japanese history. He would then befriend, and eventually teach, an entire strata of Japanese characters. He would learn Japanese swordsmanship with sufficient skill to beat masters who had been at it for years. He would later encounter and sleep with the wife of one of those unlucky warriors he felled in battle, and despite knowing that he was the one who made her a widow, she would fall in love with him and eventually bestow him the sword and armor of her husband. He would ride with the namesake of the movie, played by Ken Watanabe, in his final battle and would survive even though he was perforated with as many bullets.
Ken Watanabe may have been the samurai, but given Tom Cruise’s seeming imperviousness, the fact that he was the last one standing, and the only face gracing the poster… one can only deduce that he, in fact, was the last samurai. While never being an actual samurai at all.
The movie would culminate in this character showing up unannounced in the Imperial Palace, being given an audience with the emperor, and proceeding to lecture him and his court. That the filmmakers managed to make a compelling, even enjoyable, film inspired by all that is a different testament altogether than the point I am making here. What continues to confound me is how they then descended on Japan to try to sell this movie to the Japanese audiences while believing that they were actually there to respect and even celebrate Japanese culture. And, all things being equal, maybe they were — with one major caveat. The white guy gets the last say.
And I am sure that it had something to do with the fact that the white guy in question just so happened to be the biggest movie star in the world at that time.
You may be asking at this point, what’s the harm in a little creative license and make believe? Isn’t that the stuff of Hollywood, anyway?
The harm is when these types of depictions inform the ethos of generations of young people who then grow up to be adults. I have actually met many of them in real life, sometimes in expat bars throughout the world, sometimes closer to home in America. I am not angry at them because it is not their fault, necessarily. Frankly, they are victims of a distortion and disrespect that erodes their unique humanity. I feel sorry for them for having a discolored view of the world in which their self-importance is sadly not lodged in reality. But this is not the point of this piece.
The point is that I am celebrating that Hollywood, which reflects a global audience to itself, is finally coming around to depicting a humanity where everyone is included, respected, and matters. Not wokeness, but reality.
As storytelling enters new phases of globalization and western audiences and creators continue their search for ever new fertile grounds, I look forward to seeing a world where we no longer need the training wheels of guides who must look like ourselves as requirements for entry into the stories of others. People of color have celebrated and enjoyed the global outputs of Hollywood for a century, often without seeing anyone that looked like them. It is now time to reciprocate that by celebrating authentic stories and characters who are organically part of them. Frankly we are already there, though many have not come to accept it. Yet.
How have you seen East-West storytelling evolve in your favorite films or series? Share your thoughts and examples in the comments below!