LIVING ON TOKYO TIME

USA 1987 | 83mins | 35mm Color

In person: Director Steven Okazaki

Steven Okazaki's first fiction film is a winsome romantic comedy about Ken, an introverted Asian American garage-band guitarist involved with Kyoko, a Japanese girl whose expired visa won't halt her desire to remain in the U.S. Despite his Japanese heritage and her diligent efforts to learn English, the two can barely communicate before they've tied the knot. And although she dutifully cleans their apartment and he faithfully takes her home from her restaurant job every night, they are simply not hitting it off, as the immigration official who interrogates them suspects. The hilarious love-and-marriage advice Ken gets from his rocker friends is mainly based on the damage women have wreaked on famous musicians, or on bizarre interpretations of song lyrics ("If [the marriage] fails, you can write a song about it. Like 'Layla,'" muses one, while another decries, "You know what Bob Marley said: 'No woman, no cry'"). Others advise Ken to appreciate his luck and let time bring them together. A slacker film before the term came into common parlance, made before Japanglish became cool slang, LIVING ON TOKYO TIME boasts a rocking '80s soundtrack and some now-dramatically changed Bay Area locations, while the cast and crew include a number of emerging Japanese Americans artists who were later successful in film and theater.

—Frako Loden