EIFF: Tokyo Pop
A New York City punk meets a Tokyo rocker in this restored pop gem.
Dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui / United States, Japan / 1988 / English, Japanese with English subtitles
She is a frustrated punk singer from New York. He’s a disaffected rocknrolla from a small town outside of Tokyo. A match made in jukebox musical heaven! Bleach blonde punk Wendy (Carrie Hamilton) travels to Tokyo on a whim and ends up finding inspiration and pop stardom with Hiro (Diamond Yukai), a similarly frustrated musician trying to break through. Sporting some excellent patent leather winklepickers and a must-do attitude, Wendy and Hiro become each other’s manic pixie dream punks. Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, who later went on to make the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Tokyo Pop tenderly captures the clash of two youth cultures rooted in standing up to the man.
Anna Bogutskaya, Film and Talks Programmer
Writer-director Fran Rubel Kuzui and producer Kaz Kuzui will join us at this screening to present their film.
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Still from Tokyo Pop
© Credit : Tokyo Pop
Still from Tokyo Pop
© Credit : Tokyo Pop
Still from Tokyo Pop
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Director: Fran Rubel Kuzui
Movie director and producer Fran Rubel Kuzui is best known for lending a major hand in the creation of both the movie and television versions of teen fantasy Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kuzui got her start in show business by directing and co-writing the 1988 film Tokyo Pop (which was produced by Kuzui's husband, Kaz Kazui), before directing the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1992, a broad comedy starring Kristy Swanson in the lead role. Though the film was not particularly successful commercially, it would spawn a more successful television series, which ran from 1997 through 2003 featuring Sarah Michelle Gellar as the lead character. Kuzui served as executive producer for all of the show's 145 episodes. Kuzui also served as executive producer for the popular Buffy spinoff Angel, starring David Boreanaz as a conflicted vampire, from 1999 through 2004. Additionally, Kuzui has produced films, including Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Orgazmo and the indie sleeper Telling Lies in America.
Writers: Fran Rubel Kuzui, Lynn Grossman
Producer: Kaz Kuzui
Cast: Carrie Hamilton, Diamond Yukai, Taiji Tonoyama
Sales Agent: Kino Lorber
New 4K Restoration by IndieCollect, created in association with the Academy Film Archive with funding from Dolly Parton, Carol Burnett, the HFPA Trust, and donors to IndieCollect’s Jane Fonda Fund for Women Directors.
Read More
Tokyo Pop - Intro + Q&A with director Fran Rubel Kuzui // Japan Society NYC
Unsung Auteurs: Fran Rubel Kuzui, By Erin Free // Film Ink
‘I trust the universe to tell me where to be’, by Gwen Robinson // Financial Times
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Photo: Diamond Yukai (Hiro) and Carrie Hamilton (Wendy) in Tokyo Pop
© Tokyo Pop