My Darling is a Foreigner: Movie Review

***Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead!***

A few months ago, I was able to see a screening of My Darling is a Foreigner, a Japanese film about a young Japanese woman named Saori (Mao Inoue) and a young (white) American man named Tony, who pursue a romantic relationship despite language and cultural barriers. The movie is based on the manga (comic) series of the same name and is based on the artist’s real life cross-cultural relationship.

I was really eager to see this movie—not only is Mao Inoue one of my favorite actress (She was cute and sassy in Hana Yori Dango), but I was curious to see how this movie would handle a relationship between a Japanese woman and (white) American guy.

I used to live and work in Japan and there’s a definite “(white) Foreign guys are better than Japanese guys” meme among women. (Korean men are beloved too, but that’s a whole other post!). If you’re a white dude, it’s assumed that you are rich and nice. I asked one of my students what she thought about it, and she said that American men give more presents than Japanese men (Me: Errr, really?). My male Japanese friend said that when a Japanese girl is seen with a white guy, this raises her “status.” This meme is so prevalent that you’ll often see very attractive Japanese women with average or below average attractive white guys. But I’ll get more into that in a sec.

So, I went into seeing this film asking myself, “Is this movie going to glamorize white guys?”

This was a tough one because the character of Tony is based on an actual person. And the character of Tony is quite the romantic, sensitive modern man. Not only does he stop to smell the roses (literally), but he waits til the fourth date to kiss Saori, is horrified by violence in picture books and wants to please Saori so much that he takes on household tasks to be a good “husband.” Saori explains to her sister that Tony is “hyper sensitive”, but I’m not sure if this is meant as a compliment or not. Tony seemed quite the catch–even for an American girl!

So, just as I begin to feel that this movie was putting this American guy on a pedestal, there came a really great scene in a conveyor belt sushi restaurant with Tony and his expat friends. His friends (which are a white lady, black dude and a white British guy, I might add) are asking him about what it’s like dating a Japanese girl. Tony explains that Saori “speaks her mind” when she has problem and that to him, Saori wasn’t just a Japanese girl, but “Saori is Saori.” Score one for individuality!

In the same scene, Tony’s British friend explains why he loves living in Japan–as in, he loves all the attention he gets; he feels like “Superman” he says while waving to a group of Japanese girls, hoping to score their phone number. This British guy is a real jerk and I was really glad he was included at a counterpoint to Tony—there are really guys like that in Japan. In fact, I had a friend of mine explain to me that, “For the time in my life, I feel attractive.” I genuinely felt for him, but at the same time, how is that right when they only think you’re attractive because you’re white? Unfortunately, I don’t think any white guy is going to crusade against that.

Another scene that delighted me was a Sex and the City-like scene where actual couples are “interviewed” about their relationships. These interviews just didn’t include white guys and Japanese ladies, but an Indian dude and a guy from Myanmar. Very cool! (Unfortunately, there were no Chinese dudes in the mix).

As the movie went on, I expected a lot of cross-cultural mishaps that would strain Tony and Saori’s relationship; however, I was surprised that this wasn’t the case—in fact, gender roles put the most strain on their relationship.

Tony asks Saori one day what he can do to become a good husband. Surprisingly, Saori tells him that doing more housework would do the trick. (In Japan, there are strict gender roles. Of course, this is changing, but many Japanese women are still expected to quite their job once they get married. ) Unfortunately, while Tony enthusiastically tackles washing the dishes and doing the laundry, he does a pretty shitty job of it. Saori is none too happy about this, of course. In one scene, Tony ruins a new and expensive blouse that Saori has bought. I thought this scene was quite interesting because for all of Tony’s awesomeness, it shows him rather insensitive. Why do I say that?
1) I’m not an expert in Japanese, but he couldn’t look at the pictures on the tags? Umm, hello? Have you ever done the wash before? Are guy’s clothes not dry cleaned?
2) Tony is a self-proclaimed language geek. He loves Japanese. He loves learning beautiful and archaic words….are the words on clothing tags beneath him?? Ummm, hello?

Of course, Tony is deeply apologetic and writes out a detailed cheat sheet for himself on all clothing tag words.

The next trial comes when Saori is furiously trying to finish her comic. Saori draws comics the old fashioned way—drawing, inking and then erasing by hand all the pencil work. As you can imagine, this is all very time intensive. In one scene, Saori enlists the help of her sister to complete the work in time. Since Saori is consumed with her work, she does not have enough time for Tony or to take care of herself. Tony implores Saori to take a break, but Saori is annoyed, “You don’t understand!” she exclaims. For Saori, becoming a mangaka (comic artist) is her dream. Moreover, since her father disapproves of her relationship with Tony, she wants to prove to him that she can become a comic artist AND marry Tony.

I thought it was unfair for Tony to put pressure on Saori, after all, can you imagine Shakespeare’s wife urging him to “take a break”? On the other hand, my friend who came to see the movie, believed that Saori truly did need a break.

This particular episode puts the biggest strain on their relationship–so much so, Saori tells her mom that perhaps this cross-cultural relationship really isn’t going to work. What follows is a moving monologue from her mother about her relationship with Saori’s father that actually left me in tears. While perhaps her monologue was more poetic than practical, it drove home the main point of the movie: people are individuals and you’re going to have to work at your relationship no matter if it’s cross cultural or not.

All and all, I really liked this movie. While many Japanese movies and TV shows can be rather cheesy, I thought this move was rather heart felt and had a great message: people are people no matter where you go.