Born out of filmmaker Marc Marriott’s own experience of living in Japan and the feelings that accompany life as a foreigner, Tokyo Cowboy tells the story of Japanese businessman Hideki (played by Arata Iura), who heads to a Montana cattle ranch for the sole purpose of turning a profit. When he says goodbye to his fiancée (and boss), the last thing he expects is to undergo a journey of self-discovery. But traveling to a foreign country and experiencing life as an outsider, forced to cope with minimal language skills and cultural familiarity, triggers new feelings for him – feelings of dissatisfaction with his current existence and curiosity as to what else could be out there.

Directed by Marriott (History Channel’s Ax Men) and produced by Brigham Taylor (Tron: Legacy), Tokyo Cowboy marks the independent feature film debut for the pair. It is written by Dave Boyle and Ayako Fujitani and is currently screening at a number of festivals across the country. Marc Marriott, Brigham Taylor and Ayako Fujitani spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about the film and the importance of authenticity when telling a story that crosses cultural borders.

Hideki (Arata Iuta) & Marc Marriott (Director)

Tell me about the personal story that inspired the film. Was this project a long time coming?

Marc: Yes, it was a very long time coming. About 30 years ago, I lived in Japan and did an apprenticeship with Yoji Yamada, who’s a known filmmaker in Japan. He’s 92 years old, and he just released his 91st film. Which will also be at the Hawaii International Film Festival with our film… so it’s been this full circle journey for me, which is really lovely.

The experience of living in Japan and trying to learn Japanese, being in another culture… it really was incredibly life changing and impactful for me. I had this “fish out of water” experience and I felt very isolated and disconnected sometimes. Much like our character Hideki does. And there’s the challenge of communication.

I experienced all of that and had wanted to tell a story about it. Shortly after my apprenticeship with Yoji, there was an article in Outside magazine called “Samurai Slickers” and it was about a Japanese company that owned a ranch in Montana. They would send businessmen or workers over to learn ranching from the American side, and they’d become cowboys. That idea of a Japanese businessman coming to Montana to learn cattle ranching was really large in my imagination. It was something that stuck with me for 30 years until I wanted to do a feature film about it. I talked with my good friend Brigham Taylor – we’ve known each other for 30 years as well – and I pitched him the idea of doing a film about a Japanese cowboy. And then we started to develop that idea – what would that character journey look like? We did it with an eye toward making a very authentic and grounded story, and that’s how it started.

How did you go about finding your writers for this unique story?

Brigham: Marc and I started having these good conversations and we put an outline together for ourselves. I had done some work with Dave Boyle before. I had met him as a writer. He’s a writer and director and has done a lot of really cool, interesting, independent films. We had developed something that didn’t wind up moving forward at the studio, but I learned enough about him to know that he’s multilingual and had focused a lot of his films on cross-cultural concepts with Japan. And with American audiences in mind.

So I thought he was a good place to start because we needed a screenwriter who is sensitive to the cultural issues. He looked at it and was interested. Very early on in that conversation, we said, “Dave, we really want you to co-write this with someone from Japan because we want to be as grounded and as culturally authentic as we can be.” As it turned out, Dave had a longstanding creative partnership with Ayako Fujitani.

Dave Boyle

Ayako: I’ve been known Dave for a while and we have collaborated many times, but not as official co-writers on a screenplay. I was flattered when he reached out to me… and also a little surprised! When I found out that Marc and Brigham were already interested and wanted me to write it with Dave, I said, “Yes, let’s try it.” I thought the story was very authentic and interesting, and cute in a way. It could go many ways.

Ayako, tell me about your writing process with Dave.

Ayako: I wondered how we would collaborate, because I had never officially co-written a screenplay with anyone. Dave obviously had had a longer career as a screenwriter, whereas I started off more as a novel and short story writer. So, I was waiting for him to take the lead. Marc and Brigham already had the basic story that they wanted to tell, but we of course had to go into the details. Dave said, “I’ll write some scenes that I have an idea of and you go ahead and start writing random scenes as well.” I said, “OK, that’s wild.”

I started from there and we would rewrite and edit the scenes together, virtually. I would write and upload it to Google Docs and Dave would look at it the next day. I’d wake up, see he’d edited it and vice versa for me. I’m sure it would have been a different process if I were collaborating with someone else. But for this project, I think we just jumped in and went from there, filling in the details and bridges after.

Marc: From the very beginning, the conversations that Brigham and I had were about making a story where you have these divides between people and cultures… cultural barriers and different things that divide us. And about what would bridge those divides, what is universal about this story while still being very specific to very specific cultures.

In our first conversation with Dave, he said, “This is a very different project than anything I’ve ever done.” His films are tightly constructed; they have a very important structure to them. When it comes to the antagonist with this story, all of the conflict is internal. Right from the onset, he said, “I am intrigued and I want to work on it.” I was really grateful that he would take on that challenge; and then bringing in Ayako was just the master stroke because she brought so much humanity and authenticity to this story. To everything, but particularly the relationship between Keiko and Hideki and their journey. She brought in a perspective that I just never would have been able to understand or illuminate.

There is a scene where Hideki cannot understand what is being said because of a language barrier, but he can feel the emotion of the words… and it has a profound impact on him and his journey.

Tell me about the role of language and communication in this story.

Marc: Yes, absolutely. We’ve only had a few screenings of the film, and we’re just starting out on our festival journey. But we often get questions about that scene. We made the very deliberate choice not to have subtitles for part of the story, and that was really important to us. We had a lot of discussions about why we wanted to do it that way. I wanted the audience to experience that moment in the way that Hideki does. He doesn’t understand the language and the words – but what he does understand is the emotion. That’s a different kind of language and communication that really starts to crack him open and he starts to feel things. That, for me, is a really pivotal point in the story where he starts to change, open, listen and accept with more humility.

Brigham, in your statement about the film, you frequently use the words “authentic” and “genuine.” Films about self-discovery are not rare – what were some of the things you did in the filmmaking process and in the writing to ensure you created something unique and achieved that level of authenticity you were seeking?

Brigham Taylor

Brigham: I’m not an expert in many of the things the film discusses, but I thought the best thing I could do from the moment that Marc and I first started talking about it, was to ensure that we were always asking that question about authenticity. Every time we were making a story choice, every time we were giving a note to the writers, every time we were talking to our crew members, whether in Montana or in Japan. We constantly asked the questions, “Is this right?” “Is this accurate?” “Does it feel right?”

There were many instances where our instincts were leading us in the wrong direction on small things. For example, we had a key scene set at a hot spring that we couldn’t find a nearby shooting location for. So, we thought about constructing it. And we had this whole pitch of why it made sense in our minds to show it visually this way, because we could also achieve it in the production. Marc had a direct conversation with Ayako about it.

Marc: What we were going to do was get two big cow-watering troughs and make them look like hot springs. I’m pitching this idea to Ayako and there’s this long silence, after which she says, “That makes no sense to me. And it’s not going to make any sense to a Japanese audience.” I listened to her and just worked harder to find an actual hot spring.

Brigham: Our local extra team ended up going way outside of our zone and we did find a natural hot spring so we took the time and expense to travel out there. But there are a dozen little moments like that, both in Montana and in Japan. We were constantly listening and asking questions about what would be correct, what would be accurate, what would be real… and I think that was the best thing we could do.

Ayako: We set the tone and had to stick with that tone. Some things can be more fictitious than real. But at the same time, they had to make sense within that tone, and be real for each of the characters and each of the settings. We listened to each other very well throughout the process.

The use of humor is very subtle and understated but it marks the film throughout. How did you use humor to strike the tone you wanted?

Marc: Early conversations were really about making a film that could live in the silences. It had this deliberate pace to it where the humor would always come out of these natural situations. We weren’t going to reach too hard for the humor and it wasn’t going to be slapstick. There’s really just one moment of physical humor, but even that is a very grounded moment. For me, the best humor comes out of real situations, and I was really hoping that we could do that with this.

You are embarking on a festival tour with several upcoming screenings. What are you hoping your audiences will take away with them from the film?

Marc: I just hope that audiences will take the time to get into the story. That they’ll be surprisingly charmed by this gentle narrative about Hideki’s journey that they can maybe see some of themselves in – like in his desire to slow down and listen and connect with people. That to me is the most important thing; I hope audiences will just connect with this story and get something out of it.