TokyoShow
TokyoShow is a darkly humorous search for love; the story of seven foreigners living in Japan and linked in some way. Faithful to the classic novel The Hunting of the Samurai by Stuart Dogson Foster* upon which it is based, the film follows Barbra Scott (Alessandra Negrini) through a series of life-changing events in a succession of locations in Tokyo. Barbra is a TV presenter; she hosts the TokyoShow program, a kind of reality show. She can have anything her heart desires, even so, her charmed life seems incomplete.
Her best friend, producer tycoon Jude Ferguson (Nilton Bicudo) tries to make sense of his life after having left New York to live in Tokyo where he became an instant celebrity because of his blue wig. In Jude’s room at a high-end hotel, where he lives, he stands quietly at the window to smoke a cigarette and think about his life before heading off to a fateful meeting. In the next room, British sushi chef David Taylor (Ivan Arcuschin) is awake. He can’t sleep and decides to go out for a drink in the hotel bar.
The following day, TokyoShow is about to start a selection for a new program episode; they look for the producer Jude Ferguson but can’t find him. The police think David has something to do with the weird episode while Barbra desperately struggles to adjust to her new identity and to address the world as a woman with no past, due to Jude’s mysterious disappearance and her own issues.
Barbra, Jude, David, Jennifer, Kate, Linda and Meredith have only one goal: to regain purpose in their lives, even as all seven characters face an inevitable question that will alter their life’s course, forever.
Together these vignettes form a forceful, sometimes turbulent narrative that leaves the viewer entertained, exhausted and surprisingly reflective. In this psychological thriller the line between reality and fantasy is hopelessly blurred.