In a previous post, we reviewed the best South Korean films and series with sign language. Another Asian country whose productions are becoming more available is Japan, which has given us some gems.
Happiness of Us Alone (1961)
This list could not begin without mentioning this 1961 work, perhaps the first Asian movie with a plot centered on deaf people. It stars Hideko Takamine and Keiju Kobayashi, who together have more than 100 years of fame in Japanese cinema,
The movie tells the story of a deaf couple, Takamine and Kobayashi, whose lives symbolize the challenges of a war-torn Japanese society. Together they face the harsh reality of being treated as inferior and exploited by a society that does not understand their world. Spanning from the end of World War II in 1945 to 1961, the play is an intimate reflection of Japanese pain and resilience in times of adversity.
With the entire cast being hearing, the movie is quite powerful for its time in its use of sign language and portrayal of deaf people. It would be very interesting to know what the preparations were like in this regard at a time when the so-called Japanese economic miracle was just beginning. It is extremely difficult to find the movie today.
A Scene at the Sea (1991)
A Scene at the Sea was the third film directed by the renowned Takeshi Kitano, who has received more than 50 awards throughout his career. In it, Shigeru, a young deaf man working as a garbage collector, finds a broken surfboard on his daily route. With no experience, he decides to fix it and learn to surf, always accompanied by his girlfriend Takako, who is also deaf. The play explores passion, love and the search for identity in a social environment that is hostile to his efforts.
Both young people were hearing in real life. The play is best suited for audiences who understand the director's particular vision and artistic style. At the time of this writing, it is available on Prime Video.
Orange Days (2004)
Orange Days is a classic Japanese series in which Yuuki Kai, a college senior struggling to find his first job while studying social psychology, one day meets Hagio Sae, a talented violinist who becomes deaf, gives up speaking, and learns Japanese Sign Language.
For many Japanese teenagers at the time, the series remained one of their favorites and stimulated a lot of interest in Japanese sign language, as the main character, Kô Shibasaki, was not only an excellent actress, but also made a great effort to learn sign language fluently. Currently, the series is still available on Netflix.
A Silent Voice: The Movie (2016)
What else can we say about this amazing animated adaptation of the manga? In Unusualverse we dedicated a post to the movie on the occasion of its release in 2016, which you can read here.
The manga on which the movie is based has the same plot: an elementary school student, deaf since birth, is bullied when he changes schools. The original publication in 2013 even included explanations of Japanese sign language signs.
Drive My Car (2021)
It is unfortunate that Will Smith's embarrassing spectacle at the 94th Academy Awards drew international attention and overshadowed the Oscars that CODA received, including the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur, only the second deaf person in history to win an Oscar. The incident also made people forget about a wonderful and unconventional film, Drive My Car, which was nominated for four Oscars and won the Oscar for Best International Film.
The movie is about an actor and theater director who agrees to direct an important play in Hiroshima, where he meets a reserved young woman who will be his chauffeur. As rehearsals progress, a special relationship develops between the director and the chauffeur. The director (a character in the film) holds an international casting call in which several actors and actresses will perform the play in different languages, and one of the actress candidates is cast in sign language. The character is a deaf actress played by a real hearing actress, Park Yu-Rim (from South Korea).
There is a scene in the sign language play that is very emotional (no spoilers here) and several critics have pointed this out (e.g., The New Yorker). It is a key scene and probably contributed significantly to the beauty of the movie, once again reflecting the potential of sign language in film. In an interview, director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi revealed the reason why he included sign language as one of the languages in the play around which the movie revolves:
I wanted to use sign language because I was invited to a film festival for deaf people and sign language was a common way of communicating between them. I felt I was a bit like a foreign person in there. It's simply another language... that I found very beautiful (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi).
Silent (2022)
In this series, a student couple passionate about music suffer an unexpected breakup when the boy leaves the relationship without explanation. Eight years later, the two are reunited, but now the boy is deaf. The series broke records for production company Fuji TV, reaching 10 million viewers in its first few weeks of airing, and the official series account @silent_fujitv reached over 800,000 followers. Although the series has received good reviews, its success may have been aided by its protagonists: actress and model Haruna Kawaguchi and singer Ren Meguro, of J-pop band Snow Man fame, who has millions of followers.
Both had to learn sign language for the series, especially Ren Meguro, who had to be fluent in Japanese Sign Language as his deafness would have developed years ago. Meguro said in an interview that he appreciated the experience and found sign language "a unique and fascinating way to communicate".
One of the great things about the series is that although the two initially play the roles of hearing students, the change in the life of the boy who communicates through sign language when he becomes deaf provided an opportunity to introduce Satoshi Ezoe and Eri Nasu in supporting roles, both of whom are deaf in real life.
Actor Ren Meguro didn't just use short-term memory to interpret each line of the script (similar to Anya Taylor-Joy learning the chess moves without knowing how to play), but also showed a genuine interest in learning. The singer convinced all of his Snow Man bandmates to introduce some signs in one of his music videos:
Love Life (2022)
This movie is the only authentic representation of Japanese Sign Language and a Deaf actor in commercial audiovisual production. In Love Life, Taeko lives happily with her husband and son. However, a tragic accident shatters their stability and the child's biological father reappears. The biological father is deaf, and his reappearance forces Taeko to confront her past and rethink her future.
The role of the biological father is played by real-life deaf actor Atom Sunada. Atom had already appeared in the low-budget movie I Love You (1999) mentioned at the beginning of this article, so this is his first commercial movie. You can follow Atom Sunada on his Instagram account @atomsunada.
You can see the sensitivity to sign language throughout the movie. The framing of the sign language is correct, there are several details that provide good advice about deaf culture, the way the sign language is portrayed is authentic, and Atom Sunada's work is excellent. The film has been nominated for several awards at international festivals, including the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival.
