FASCINATED BY JAPAN TOKYO AND ENVIRONS REMAIN PLENTY EXOTIC FOR AMERICAN FILMMAKERS AND STARS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Ed Zwick's fascination with Japan started with a steady diet of Akira Kurosawa movies while he was a student at Harvard. Across the country, Quentin Tarantino got his Asian groove going spending Saturdays devouring low-budget kung-fu flicks at a second-run theater in Hawthorne. Around that same time, Tom Cruise liked to pretend he was a Jedi Knight, only later realizing that George Lucas stole the concept from Kurosawa's ``The Seven Samurai.'' When Cruise became a star and started traveling to Japan to promote his movies, he found himself captivated by the culture, eager to learn more.

These three men - and a woman, Sofia Coppola - have all recently made high-profile films set in Japan, and suddenly everywhere you look people are turning Japanese with results that have both inspired and infuriated audiences.

In addition to the movies - Coppola's ``Lost in Translation,'' Tarantino's ``Kill Bill'' and Zwick's ``The Last Samurai'' (in theaters Friday) - American pop culture has been overrun by Japanese exports, be it anime, manga, video games or fashion.

``There's a whole generation now that sees Japan in something of the same way the Lost Generation viewed Paris,'' says Stuart Levy, CEO of Tokyopop Inc., a leading Los Angeles-based distributor of Japanese movies, manga and music. ``There's a connection there, whether it's about design or mysticism or otherness ... or even good sushi. It didn't happen overnight. We've been building to this for a decade now.''

New (and old) way to think

And while this small tsunami of interest hasn't exactly translated into more opportunities for Asian or Asian-American filmmakers (Justin Lin's notable debut feature, ``Better Luck Tomorrow,'' is an exception), it has led some powerhouse American directors to look at Japan, both past and present. And it has Hollywood heavyweights like Cruise, Scientology's No. 1 son, rabidly extolling the virtues of bushido, the ancient code of warrior values derived from Zen, Buddhism, Confucianism and Shintoism.

In his new movie, ``The Last Samurai,'' Cruise plays a disillusioned Civil War veteran who comes to Japan in 1876 when the Japanese emperor succumbs to Western ideas and influences and decides to modernize his country's army. When Cruise's soldier is captured by the samurai, he gets a lesson in bushido and eventually becomes a willing disciple.

Which is kind of like what happened to Cruise, whose knowledge of samurai ways was limited to what he saw in Kurosawa movies before making his new movie. Now, he's faxing the bushido code to practically everyone he knows.

``I hope this movie will open people's eyes to another culture,'' Cruise says.

Adds Zwick: ``With the samurai, poetry, beauty and art are as much a part of a warrior's training as swordsmanship. Our movie is set in a time when the world was changing and many things were pulling Japanese away from the spirit of bushido. Ultimately, the film asks the question: Can those values be held onto in the modern age? I think the question remains just as important today for Japan, the United States and the rest of the world.''

American as other

Zwick's movie, with its reverence for Japan's ancient ways and philosophies, isn't likely to rattle the cages of the politically correct, who savaged both ``Lost in Translation'' and ``Kill Bill'' with charges of insensitivity and outright thievery. Yet those two films- both of which will wind up on a great many Top 10 lists - are very accurate reflections of their makers' own rather intense encounters with Japan and its culture.

Coppola came up with the dreamy existential tone of ``Lost in Translation'' after making several trips to Japan in her mid-20s and staying at the film's central location, the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Her story of two lost souls breaking through their disconnectedness to form an unlikely friendship perfectly captures the profound cultural differences between the United States and Japan, even if it occasionally (and playfully) indulges in a stereotype or two.

Some detractors (and these people tend to be Canadian, naturally) say Coppola is nothing short of an Ugly American. Christopher Shulgan, writing in Toronto's Globe and Mail, opines ``Lost in Translation'' is ``bound to irritate anyone who doesn't own a U.S. passport. That Japan is different from the United States is an observation worthy of comment only ... for people who spent their lives ignorant of foreign cultures, something Americans seem to specialize in.''

To be fair, National Public Radio's Setsuko Sato, a Japanese-American, reacted differently to the film, saying in a commentary that she wasn't offended by the portrayal of the Japanese. If anything, she says, because she understood the language and customs, she felt that it was the ``Japanese who were a bit amused at the ignorant American played by Bill Murray.'' Foreigners in Japan, she notes ``are treated like children'' who don't know better.

Smashing stereotypes

Interesting then that an Australian filmmaker, Sue Brooks, found the differences between East and West important enough to include in her latest feature, ``Japanese Story,'' a movie that has quickly become Australia's most critically lauded film since ``Shine.'' In Brooks' film (which opens in Los Angeles on Dec. 31), an Australian geologist and a Japanese businessman strip away the stereotypes during a trip through the Outback, forming an unlikely connection, not unlike the one made in ``Lost in Translation.''

Says Brooks: ``In Australia, we have the prime minister saying that we have to embrace the fact that we're physically part of Asia, even though the cultures are so different. At the same time, there has been a rise in racist politics, not just about Asians, but Aborigines as well. So we wanted to counter that. It's not a political film, but we wanted to say, 'We're all just souls underneath.' ''

Brooks loved ``Lost in Translation,'' and having spent a great deal of time in Japan while casting her movie, she says she had the same experiences Coppola captured in her movie.

``I lived that movie,'' Brooks says, laughing. ``It's a beautiful culture, but there's a strong sense of being 'the other.' You can't help but be conscious of the fact that you are a stranger in a strange land.''

That, says Tarantino, is part of what makes Japan so ``cool,'' both for himself and his fan base, which is mostly composed of young males.

``I think everyone who loves movies wants to go to a theater, have the lights dim and then see something that knocks you on your (behind),'' Tarantino says. ``Martial arts movies - as well as blaxploitation movies and spaghetti Westerns and a lot of other things - did that for me. Anime is doing precisely the same thing for kids today. The images and the stories are bold and in your face. And there's a mystical element that only adds to the experience.''

Cultural obsession

``Kill Bill - Vol. 1'' has a lengthy anime segment - which was animated in Tokyo - in addition to hundreds of references to Tarantino's favorite chop-socky movies. Tarantino's revenge flick may, in fact, be the most comprehensive glimpse into a filmmaker's fetishes and obsessions that has ever been made.

``People in Japan are very proud of that anime sequence,'' Tokyopop's Levy says, ``much in the same way they're proud of (Hideki) Matsui playing for the Yankees. For all the talk about the Japanese being obsessed with American pop culture, I think they're much more obsessed and proud of their own culture.''

``And I don't think that Japanese pop culture and its influence here in the States is a fad or trend, either,'' adds Levy, a Northridge native. ``As storytellers and creators and designers, they're definitely in the top class of the world, and their economy allows that young generation to practice and shape those kinds of careers. So it's not going to disappear. If anything, you're going to be seeing even more from Japan in the coming years.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

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5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Tom Cruise in `The Last Samurai'

(2 -- 3) Tom Cruise (at top in ``The Last Samurai'') and Bill Murray (above in ``Lost in Translation'') stand out as Americans in the very foreign culture of Japan.

(4) Quentin Tarantino's ``Kill Bill - Vol. 1,'' with Lucy Liu, is inspired by - and includes a sequence of - Japanese anime.

(5) A Japanese man is the fish out of water in the Australia-set ``Japanese Story.''