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Six Four (2023)
So different to the original novel
Of all the Japanese novels that I have read, the one that I know and like best is Kuraimazu Hai ('Climber's High') by Hideo Yokoyama as I have written about in relation to World Book Day as well as in many other posts and in my research. Climber's High (which has an official translation called 'Seventeen') is not Yokoyama's only novel. Another that did particularly well is 64 (Roku-Yon, 'Six Four'). While there are Japanese dramatizations of this story, I have not seen any of them yet. But this week I finally got round to watching a UK version of the story.
Before watching the programme, I relistened to the audiobook of the English translation of Six Four to remind myself of the key aspects of the story. I need not have bothered. Although Yokoyama clearly gave authorisation for this dramatization to be made, part of me wonders if he had been shown the four-part series without prior knowledge of its contents, would he have realised that it was based on his novel? Of course the title makes a link clear, but beyond that there is so much that is different that the series producers may have a case for suggesting it was coincidence. I even wonder what score the script would get if put through the Turnitin plagiarism software we use at my university if it were compared with the dialogue in the English translation of the novel.
Warning - the rest of this post contains spoilers.
The differences between the original and the UK TV dramatization is not merely about location, but that is part of it. The original is set in Japan, while the UK dramatization is set in the UK, primarily in Scotland. Changing locations to being in the country where the target audience is has a wide range of advantages. You can get rid of cultural aspects that viewers may not comprehend and introduce characteristics, or 'pillars of truth' to use a term and concept that Yokoyama himself introduced to me, that the viewers can relate to. That not doing so, and in the case of novels not allowing translators to explain things that readers may not be familiar with, is something that I have discussed elsewhere, such as in the second edition of Japan: The Basics. In the case of Six Four UK, the localisation in Scotland led to Scottish independence coming up as a central issue, which obviously wasn't in the original (or anything equivalent).
Another significant change was how the title was handled. In the Japanese version, 64 refers to the year of the Showa Imperial reign, which is 1989. In Six Four UK refers to a person and is seemingly the equivalent of the 'Koda memo' in the original novel. Although this was perhaps a clever way to deal with the fact that the original reference for the number didn't work, the search for who 'Six Four' referred to didn't have anything like the tension or significance as the Koda memo in the original and certainly not to the degree that it justified 'Six Four' being the title of the series (other than what the novel was called... but as noted above Kuraimazu Hai ('Climber's High') became 'Seventeen' so Yokoyama may have allowed for a different title given he seemingly approved so much of the rest of the story to be changed.
Compared to the original, the wife of the protagonist is a very different character to the one in the novel. She is much more out-going. She doesn't wait at home for their missing daughter to phone. Indeed, although there is still a storyline about the police mishandling a phone call, it is not done in the same way as the novel and, in my view, is one of the most disappointing aspects of the changes (equivalent to the removal of the Mochizuki storyline in the 2008 movie version of 'Climber's High').
The UK version has additional criminal type people, perhaps in keeping with the sorts of things that British audiences would prefer/expect compared to the pace and style of the original Six Four. The ending even leaves open the potential for a sequel and further series using the same characters, but without any use of Yokoyama's book as a basis. But, overall, the dramatization, perhaps because I am familiar with the original, missed the mark and I'm not invested in seeing any continuation. I gave a rating of 6 for (😉) the UK dramatization on IMDb.
Ironically, for many years I used to ask students how a UK-based version of 'Climber's High' could be done. It was interesting to see how a different Yokoyama novel has been handled and it's given me further ideas about how I would handle a UK-based version of 'Climber's High'. As for Six Four, I need to get hold of the Japanese dramatizations to see how they hold up in comparison to the novel and UK version.
Minamata (2020)
Fabulous Photography and Telling of a Story that Shouldn't Need Telling
Compared to another foreign-made movie related to environmental issues in Japan, The Cove (dir. Louie Psihoyos 2009), Minamata is much more watchable and much better made (I know that The Cove has a very high rating on IMDb, but I didn't think it was very good at all). Minamata is not perfect and I'm sure that there are some historical errors in it - it is, after all, "Based on True Events" and is not a documentary. This is a theme that has come up in my work on disaster films.
As well as being interested in the telling of the story of Minamata, I really enjoyed the focus on Smith. There are a few reasons for this. First, due to the way in which his pictures and gaiatsu (foreign pressure) helped make a difference. I still hope to achieve something in getting to the bottom of what really happened to the flight JL123 using such gaiatsu. Second, and still connected to JL123, one of my friends, Naonori Kohira, is a photographer. He was one of the first to find the JL123 crash site and he has a book, 4/524, covering some of his photographs and memories (which I provided the English translation for) and some of his experiences helped influence elements of the 2008 movie version of Climber's High. Third, the main character, Iwakura, in one of my series of novels is a photographer/journalist so I am interested in seeing more about how such photographers work.
One line that stuck out for me in the film is when Smith points out that there are those that some believe that when you take a photograph you take a bit of the subject's soul and he comments that the same may also be true for the photographer themselves. I think there are times when the same could be said about academics covering certain people and subjects.
Much like Fukushima 50 and Borgen, the first three seasons of which I have just finished watching, I really like the way it was put together, but I'm not sure there would be a need or desire to watch it again. I was glad though that movie did bring us up to date with what has happened since Smith took his pictures and was interested to see that his (ex)wife Aileen continues to work on raising awareness about Minamata and environmental issues. However, the film could have done more to point out just how pitiful the compensation and response from Chisso and Japanese government has been in relation to everything that happened.
Special Bulletin (1983)
Brilliant, but time for a re-make
I first watched "Special Bulletin" back in the 1980s when it was first shown on TV and have watched more recently as part of my study, "Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?"
I still remember watching it on TV that first time. Yes, the film is not without its faults (even the biggest budget movies can have these) and there is no shortage of TV movies which are just not as good as films for the cinema. But "Special Bulletin" is perfect for TV. I actually cannot imagine it working in the cinema. You need to watch it as you would watch the news. Perhaps there's an argument that a re-make should be done so that it's for watching on mobile devices, but that may be a step too far.
I'm sure some of the impact of the original viewing was lost on me. After all, as a US production, none of the newscasters meant anything to me. They were not the reporters I saw on TV every day. I would love to see a re-make using TV reporters that I would normally see (in much the some way that "Threads" was great due to including actual BBC reporters).
The quality of many TV movies and series has come on so much in the past few decades. There have been many great programmes that I have watched and even for my study on disaster narratives, there were some wonderfully put together TV films (e.g. "Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232 (aka A Thousand Heroes)", "Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac", "Flight 93", "The Day After", "Threads", "Climber's High (2005)", and "One-no-Kanata-ni"). A modern version of "Special Bulletin" could be amazing.
"Special Bulletin" shows its age now (if you can manage to find a copy) - not only due to the quality of the picture, but also the storyline.
With tensions in Ukraine and a possible return to a cold war set-up, a terrorist nuclear boat being parked in London, for example, could easily work as an alternative, but somewhat similar to the original, plot line. Alternatively, and perhaps even better, would be a North Korean boat in Tokyo bay holding the Japanese government to ransom. To some degree, there were elements of this idea within my novel "Hijacking Japan".
Unlike when I re-watched two movies related to the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, when I expected to change my ratings on IMDb but didn't, after re-watching "Special Bulletin" I felt that it deserved a higher score than I had given it. So I have now given it a 9 and so it also now appears on my list of top movies and TV shows.
As I have written about before, now more than for many years, we need to remind people of the power of nuclear weapons. It is time that a remake of "Special Bulletin" was made as people are sleep walking into forgetting the power of nuclear weapons and that makes them more dangerous than ever before. Come on BBC/Amazon/Netflix, please re-make "Special Bulletin".
Body Double (1984)
Frankie Say 5 minutes is enough
Most of the movie is convoluted, with a poor script and acting. Watch it for Holly Johnson performing Relax (that 5 minutes would have worked well as the video for the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song), but skip the rest.
Japan: Between Earth and Sky (2020)
Great images, but turn off the sound and subtitles
The imagery is great, but you'll be better off listening to your own music than listening to the script/commentary which is like a collection of Tweets of cliches about Japan rather than a flowing dialogue with any substance.
Lancaster Skies (2019)
Focus on the story and the details
There is much to dislike. Some of the acting is wooden. There are no subtitles on the version I saw on Amazon Prime.
But...
It does a good job of telling it how it was. War is not glorious. It is not exciting. There's lots of hanging around. People die. There are conflicts amongst people on the same side, let alone with the "enemy". Once you accept that this is the reality of WWII and that is what this film is trying to portray, you can appreciate that it's actually very well put together.