ASIA / PACIFIC
May 2, 2022
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Director of Drive My Car surprised by Oscar, popularity
INTERNATIONAL POPULARITY. Producer
Akihisa Yamamoto, film director Ryusuke Hamaguchi,
and actor Hidetoshi Nishijima (L-R) share a light mo-
ment while posing for a photo after a news conference
about their award-winning film, Drive My Car, in To-
kyo. Hamaguchi was surprised by the international
popularity of the film. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
By Mari Yamaguchi
The Associated Press
OKYO — Japanese director
Ryusuke Hamaguchi says he was
surprised by the international
popularity of his Oscar-winning film Drive
My Car, but attributes it to the
universality of the short story by Haruki
Murakami on which it is based.
The movie centers on an actor played by
Hidetoshi Nishijima who is directing a
multilingual production of Chekhov’s
Uncle Vanya. Still mourning the sudden
loss of his wife, the actor, Kafuku, leads the
cast in rehearsals in which they sit and
read their lines flatly, ingesting the
language for days before acting them out.
The three-hour-long story of grief,
connection, and recovery won an Academy
Award last month for best international
feature film.
“Actually I was surprised by how widely
this film has been accepted,” Hamaguchi
said at a news conference in Tokyo last
month.
While attributing its popularity to the
universality
of
Murakami’s
story,
Hamaguchi said the actors “put it on the
screen in a very convincing way, even
though I’m sure it was an extremely
challenging task for them to embody
Haruki Murakami’s worldview.”
T
The “inner reality” of the characters in
the story is both the charm and difficulty of
turning Murakami’s story into visuals,
Hamaguchi said.
“Describing inner reality ... is something
movies are not very good at,” Hamaguchi
said. So he decided not to trace the written
language of the original story. “The more
attractive a story is, the harder it is for
visuals to surpass the images already
formed in the minds of readers,” he said.
Hamaguchi said he decided to visualize
the core of the story — the relationship
between Kafuku and his much younger
driver Misaki — who has also suffered the
loss of her mother in a mudslide — which
gradually
deepens
through
their
conversations in his beloved red Saab, one
of few colorful items in the movie.
The film combines the inner worlds of
Murakami and Chekhov and reflects their
similarities, Hamaguchi said.
Conversations between Kafuku and
Misaki contrast with those of Vanya and
Sonya in Uncle Vanya, and when Kafuku
acts as Vanya during the performance, he
comes to realize his own inner words
toward recovery.
“So I found Drive My Car and Uncle
Vanya wonderfully intertwined as if they
translated each other,” Hamaguchi said.
Hamaguchi said he wanted to thank
Murakami at the Oscar awards ceremony
but missed the chance because his “thank
you” after giving a long list of actors’
names was misunderstood as the end of his
speech.
“I still wanted to thank Murakami-san
and my staff,” he said.
Hamaguchi’s films, which include the
anthology Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
released last year, are acclaimed, but he
was not widely known in Hollywood before
an award for best screenplay at last year’s
Cannes Film Festival brought attention to
Drive My Car.
Hamaguchi
said
international
audiences now see Asia as a source of
interesting films, and he hopes his fellow
filmmakers can create movies that can
“pierce through the hearts of audiences”
and live up to their expectations.
His goals for his next film? “I just want to
be able to say I made one that is a little
better than my previous one,” Hamaguchi
said.
Major Japan railway now powered only by renewable energy
By Yuri Kageyama
The Associated Press
T
OKYO — Tokyo’s Shibuya is famed for its
Scramble Crossing, where crowds of people
crisscross the intersection in a scene symbolizing
urban Japan’s congestion and anonymity. It may have
added another boasting right.
Tokyu Railways’ trains running through Shibuya and
other stations were switched to power generated only by
solar and other renewable sources starting April 1.
That means the carbon dioxide emissions of Tokyu’s
sprawling network of seven train lines and one tram
service now stand at zero, with green energy being used at
all its stations, including for vending machines for drinks,
security camera screens, and lighting.
Tokyu, which employs 3,855 people and connects Tokyo
with nearby Yokohama, is the first railroad operator in
Japan to have achieved that goal. It says the carbon
dioxide reduction is equivalent to the annual average
emissions of 56,000 Japanese households.
Nicholas Little, director of railway education at
Michigan State University’s Center for Railway Research
and Education, commends Tokyu for promoting
renewable energy but stressed the importance of boosting
the bottom-line amount of that renewable energy.
“I would stress the bigger impacts come from increasing
electricity generation from renewable sources,” he said.
“The long-term battle is to increase production of
renewable electricity and provide the transmission
infrastructure to get it to the places of consumption.”
The technology used by Tokyu’s trains is among the
most ecologically friendly options for railways. The other
two options are batteries and hydrogen power.
And so is it just a publicity stunt, or is Tokyu moving in
the right direction?
Ryo Takagi, a professor at Kogakuin University and
specialist in electric railway systems, believes the answer
isn’t simple because how train technology evolves is
complex and depends on many uncertain societal factors.
In a nutshell, Tokyu’s efforts are definitely not hurting
and are probably better than doing nothing. They show
the company is taking up the challenge of promoting clean
energy, he said.
“But I am not going out of my way to praise it as great,”
Takagi said.
Bigger gains would come from switching from diesel
trains in rural areas to hydrogen powered lines and from
switching gas-guzzling cars to electric, he said.
Tokyu paid an undisclosed amount to Tokyo Electric
Power Co., the utility behind the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
disaster, for certification vouching for its use of
renewables, even as Japan continues to use coal and other
fossil fuels.
“We don’t see this as reaching our goal but just a start,”
said assistant manager Yoshimasa Kitano at Tokyu’s
headquarters, a few minutes’ walk from the Scramble
Crossing.
Such steps are crucial for Japan, the world’s
sixth-biggest carbon emitter, to attain its goal of becoming
carbon-neutral by 2050.
Only about 20% of Japan’s electricity comes from
renewable sources, according to the Institute for
Sustainable Energy Policies, a Tokyo-based independent
nonprofit research organization.
That lags way behind New Zealand, for instance, where
84% of power used comes from renewable energy sources.
New Zealand hopes to make that 100% by 2035.
The renewable sources driving Tokyu trains include
hydropower, geothermal-power, wind power, and solar
power, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility
that provides the electricity and tracks its energy
sourcing.
Tokyu has more than 64 miles of railway tracks serving
2.2 million people a day, including commuting
“salarymen” and “salarywomen” and schoolchildren in
uniforms.
Since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, when a
tsunami set off by a massive earthquake sent three
reactors into meltdowns, Japan has shut down most of its
nuclear plants and ramped up use of coal-fired power
plants.
The country aims to have between 36% and 38% of its
energy come from renewable sources by 2030, while
slashing overall energy use.
Tokyu Railways has sought to publicize its effort with
posters and YouTube clips.
Still, Ryuichi Yagi, who heads his own company that
used to make neckties but has switched to wallets
appeared surprised to learn he was riding on a “green
train.”
“I had no idea,” he said.
Yagi switched his business because of Japan’s “cool biz”
movement. It encourages male office workers to doff their
suits for open-necked short-sleeve shirts to conserve
energy by keeping air conditioning to a minimum in hot
summer months.
In a sense, he said, “I lead a very green life.”
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U.S. drone company Zipline starts delivering medicine in Japan
Continued from page 2
“You can totally transform the way
that you react to pandemics, treat
patients, and do things like home
healthcare delivery,” Zipline chief
executive Keller Rinaudo told The
Associated Press.
Although drones have been used in
Japan for photography and aerial
exhibitions, such as the Tokyo
Olympics last year, they’re not in
wide use, especially in urban areas
because of regulations. It remains to
be seen if Zipline’s healthcare service
will help win over skeptics.
Rinaudo was optimistic the tech-
nology will be accepted in a nation
known for robotics prowess, which
has a large elderly population but
needs better healthcare in isolated
areas. Medical services are the focus
because “there was a real moral
imperative to get that right first,” he
said.
“Communities will deeply under-
stand the value of the service. And it
was also easier to get regulators
comfortable with what we were doing
when every flight was potentially
saving a human life,” Rinaudo said.
By delivering medicine precisely,
the service helps reduce stockpiles
and, potentially, waste. The zero-
emission quiet flights can go as far as
186 miles and are inexpensive com-
pared to other modes of transport,
according to Zipline, based in South
San Francisco, California.
The coronavirus pandemic has
made deliveries of vaccines more
pressing than ever, Rinaudo said.
Blood supplies, insulin, and cancer
treatment have already been
delivered with Zipline drones.
A subsidiary called Sora-iina will
carry out the operations, managing a
distribution center and flight services
from Fukue Port on Goto Islands. It’s
the first distribution center in Asia,
and 14th in the world to operate
Zipline’s “autonomous instant logis-
tics” technology. Three major Japa-
nese distributors of pharmaceuticals
have agreed to be partners.
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