“Tokyo Pop,” a film starring Carrie Hamilton, daughter of the comedian Carol Burnett, experienced critical acclaim but gradually faded from memory until it was recently brought back to life.
When “Tokyo Pop” premiered in April 1988, reviewers were full of praise, especially for its lead actress, Carrie Hamilton, who was new to the big screen but had prior experience on TV’s “Fame.” Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times remarked that Hamilton’s performance won over audiences’ hearts. Walter Goodman from The New York Times applauded the film’s lively rhythm and energy. Notably, Keith Haring, at the peak of his career, created the opening titles for the movie.
However, by November 2019, when a screening of “Tokyo Pop” took place at the Japan Society in Manhattan, the film had been nearly forgotten. Its Canadian theatrical distributor, Spectrafilm, had long vanished, and though VHS copies existed, the film was never released on disc or streaming platforms. Even the film’s director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, had not seen it in over three decades. Tragically, Carrie Hamilton passed away from cancer at the age of 38 in 2002.
Yet, the Japan Society screening marked a turning point for the film’s revival. Sandra Schulberg, the head of the preservation organization IndieCollect, expressed her interest in restoring and re-releasing the picture during the post-screening Q&A session. Thanks to the support of sponsors like Carol Burnett and Dolly Parton, the restoration process was completed. “Tokyo Pop” will premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and tour nationwide.
In a June interview in New York, Kuzui, now 78, reflected on her first film, saying, “When you make something, you don’t think about how you’ll feel about it in 35 years.” She mentioned how she used to spot the movie on Blockbuster shelves and received festival inquiries regularly, but she lost track of its fate beyond that. In those days, without the internet, there was no easy way to trace the film’s afterlife. She acknowledged that her generation is fortunate to have digital and streaming platforms that allow filmmakers to revisit their past work on a broader scale.
The story of “Tokyo Pop” held personal significance for Kuzui, who grew up in Great Neck, New York, and is married to Kaz Kuzui, a Japanese film producer whom she met while working as a script supervisor and he as an assistant director. The film revolves around Wendy (played by Hamilton), a backup vocalist from New York who spontaneously travels to Japan during a period when American culture is immensely popular there. She befriends Hiro (Yutaka Tadokoro), a disgruntled rock musician with limited English skills. They begin dating, and Wendy hesitantly joins Hiro’s band, which covers American songs. The closing credits feature a song written and performed by Hamilton herself.
Despite co-writing the script with her friend Lynn Grossman, “Tokyo Pop” was predominantly produced by a Japanese team, a rare occurrence for any American filmmaker, let alone a woman, at that time. Even Kuzui’s typical directive, “Action!”, was seen as unfeminine yelling.
Kuzui aimed to avoid portraying a stereotypical foreigner dependent on Japan, given her own experiences living there. Wendy’s novelty status boosts her fame in Japan, highlighting the different treatment foreigners received compared to Japanese individuals. Kuzui wanted to succeed as a filmmaker without relying on such an advantage.
Although Kuzui and her husband spent four decades dividing their time between the US and Japan, she only started living in Japan more extensively during the pandemic. Following “Tokyo Pop,” she directed just one other film, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992), which gained a larger audience. Kuzui believes that even that film might undergo re-evaluation in the current zeitgeist as viewers re-examine art from the 1980s and 1990s.
Kazu Watanabe, who curated “Tokyo Pop” at the Japan Society and now heads distribution at Grasshopper Picture, discovered the film while curating a series on foreigners making films in Tokyo. He found that the movie held up, even in small ways, and remained relevant to contemporary tastes, unlike some other films from that era. He mentioned a scene where the two leads are in bed together, and Wendy changes her mind about sleeping with Hiro in a matter-of-fact manner, showing a lack of melodrama.
The restoration of “Tokyo Pop” was undertaken by IndieCollect, partly due to its status as a remarkable directorial debut by a woman who, in Schulberg’s view, did not receive the recognition she deserved.
Carol Burnett recalled Hamilton’s challenges while filming the movie, such as hair issues caused by treatments in Japan. Despite the difficulties, Burnett expressed her joy at the film’s rediscovery, with more people discovering her daughter’s talent once again.
The revival of “Tokyo Pop” allows new audiences to appreciate its significance in cinematic history and acknowledge the talent of both Carrie Hamilton and Fran Rubel Kuzui.
