The film version of Ender’s Game — or as the Japanese call it, Ender no Game — finally opened in Japan, so I dragged my son along to see it, as he’s rapidly getting to that “too busy to go see movies with his dad” age. The Japanese love movies and follow Hollywood and European films closely, which makes the Japanese market an important one for film studios. Happily for expat gaijin like me, Japanese fans are used to watching foreign films with subtitles rather than dubbed voice tracks (as in the case in most other foreign countries, notably China), so I can enjoy movies in my native language. One small frustration is the tendency for films to be shown in Japan several months after their U.S. release, which is also the case with the second Hobbit film, which doesn’t open here for another few weeks. This minor quibble is managed by the fact that you can drink beer in Japanese movie theatres, Pulp Fiction style, so I’m not too upset. While it’s not uncommon to go see a movie after 10 pm or even later in the U.S., this isn’t really done here in Japan, and my son and I had the entire theatre to ourselves last night. My review/rant about Ender’s Game is here if you care particularly. (Serious spoiler warning, of course.)
Some info on Japanese movie theatres, if you’re curious.
