Summary
A love letter to a bygone era of classic Japanese and Hollywood cinema, there’s a certain amount of magic to it that will appeal to the hopeless romantic inside us all.
Japanese cinema is often fond of visiting its own history. This year’s runaway cult film One Cut of the Dead, for example, looks at the (un)realities of indie cinema. Here Hideki Takeuchi (Thermae Romae) looks back to a different era in a magical fantasy that is sure to appeal to lovers of classic moviemaking.
COLOR ME TRUE (今夜、ロマンス劇場で), also know as Tonight, At the Movies, is a reasonably straightforward spin on the “real world episode” trope. Prop master and aspiring director Kenji (Kentaro Sakaguchi) labours on the latest studio picture for massive star Ryunosuke ‘Handsome Man’ Shundo (Kazuki Kitamura). After repeated viewings of an older film, Kenji falls for the beautiful Princess Miyuki (Haruka Ayase). When she emerges from her black and white world into his, their love story takes on a (literal) new dimension.
Okay, so this might be a fairly blatant riff on Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, but you can watch this and post it to Letterboxd without any guilt! It’s also a loving tribute to a bygone era of Japanese filmmaking, lovingly recreated in backlots, period-accurate poster art and over-the-top character actors. Shundo’s film titles recall the heyday of the studio system, including Let’s Go Handsome Guy and The Monster and the Handsome Guy.
Yet Takeuchi doesn’t necessarily rely on a deep knowledge of mid-century Japanese cinema, instead relying on broader brushstrokes and the conventions of romance cinema. While not as sharp as Singin’ in the Rain (although few films are), it carries the same kind of tongue-in-cheek charm and fondness for history. It’s way more saccharine, conscious of its own quest for a happy ending, but that’s hardly a crime in the 21st century.
Commenting on the audience relationship with cinema, Takeuchi seems to be saying that film and romance have at least one thing in common: if we stop paying attention to them, they are in danger of fading away. “A movie is a fleeting thing,” a wizened voice declares, as if in a direct dialogue with the audience. “Only a handful of movies remain in people’s memories.” Even if there’s something slightly derivative about COLOR ME TRUE, if film nostalgia remains as charming as this, then we are in no danger of falling out of love with cinema.
2018 | Japan | DIR: Hideki Takeuchi | WRITERS: Keisuke Uyama | CAST: Haruka Ayase, Kentaro Sakaguchi, Kazuki Kitamura | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. (JPN), Japanese Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes | RELEASE DATE: October – December 2017 (JFF)
