On the one hand, I'm prepared to love this movie. Junya Sakino, director of "Sake Bomb," gets it, as they say. He is one of a growing breed of Japanese filmmakers who studied in the U.S. and are now working there. "Sake Bomb" — a film about a nice, unassuming Japanese guy who travels to America looking for his girlfriend — has it spot on. The cultural clashes, the language difficulties and the guy's dawning realization that, as a Japanese tourist in the land of the free, he cuts about as much ice as a butter knife could carve off an iceberg. And if you don't know what a Sake Bomb is, look no further than the film's trailer and tell yourself never to order one in a Los Angeles bar for as long as you live.
It has its good points, but on the other hand, "Sake Bomb" seems to pander a bit much to the insecurities and sense of inadequacy that are a big part of life for Japanese living in America. And as the movie amply illustrates, it doesn't get a whole lot better for native Asian-Americans either.
"Sake Bomb" will elicit laughs from the audience in Japan, but ultimately, discomfort will wash over them like a murky tide. Are we Asian-Americans really so clueless and adorable, in that pitiful, puppy-up-for adoption kind of way?
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