The 2004 Movie... in Japanese!

Greetings once again! I hope you all had a great holiday, and I wish all my fans and followers a happy 2011! Last night, I got an interesting treat in the mail. On December 17th in Japan, the 2004 film version of POTO was shown, dubbed in Japanese for the first time. I have a friend in Japan who graciously agreed to videotape it for me and send me a copy. For some odd reason, even though I despise English-language dubs of foreign films (give me subtitles any day), I love watching foreign dubs of films that were originally in English, especially musicals. This was actually my first time watching (almost) the entire movie dubbed in another language – I enjoy listening to the Spanish and Italian soundtracks, and I've watched bits of the movie with the French audio track, but in that case, the Phantom's voice appealed to me even less than Gerard Butler's (even though he clearly had more training).

One thing to remember about shows videotaped in Japan: often, if the films were made in the US or other countries, they'll have 2 different audio tracks. Japanese TVs can switch between them, but on most American sets, you'll need to unplug either the right or left audio channel; otherwise, you'll have the English/other language and Japanese tracks talking over each other for the whole thing. In this case, the English track was on the left (red) audio channel, while the Japanese was on the right (white). Anywho, here's my review of the Japanese-language dub of the 2004 movie.

Overall, I quite enjoyed it. I've never been that keen on the movie in general, and there were more than a few points where I simply listened to the singing while doing other things (like folding laundry). As it was recorded from a TV broadcast, there were commercials every now and then. Most of those were put in reasonable breaks in the narrative, but one commercial break was really baffling – they stuck it in the final lair scene, right after the Phantom says "You try my patience... make your choice!" Seriously, whose idea was that?!

Also, some bits were trimmed to shorten the movie somewhat. The only portion with singing that was cut was "Magical Lasso." Other than that, they found clever ways to trim bits from the spoken dialogue or gratuitous scenery shots (which I didn't mind at all). Many of those worked quite well – in fact, I'd say the cuts they made to the swordfight and certain bits involving the "Point of No Return" dancers actually made those scenes better. They also trimmed out nearly all of the instrumental break in the middle of "Masquerade." While the musician in me was a bit annoyed by that cut, my inner cinematographer cheered. The only cuts that really bothered me occurred in the "Il Muto" ballet and simultaneous hanging of Buquet – the cinematography and editing of the scene don't work either in full length or shortened, and the cuts just didn't make any sense musically, though I could tell they were at least trying to make it work.

The lyrics were kept the same as the lyrics for the Japanese stage version all the way through. While it didn't fit with the on-screen actors' lip movements, the performers all displayed great voice-acting. There were a few lyrics that I was convinced would need to be changed, but the performers made it all work by changing the emphasis or inflections to fit what was happening on-screen. The only problem was that the "new chandelier" line in "Masquerade" wasn't changed.

While the sung lines were kept the same, though, many of the spoken bits were changed. The most interesting change to me came in the final lair scene, during Christine's spoken "I gave you my mind blindly." In the original Japanese lyrics for the stage version, the stanza was "Angel of Music, long ago / I devoted my soul to you." The movie version changed it to "Angel of Music, long ago / I believed in you." Interestingly, one of the passages that was sung in the stage version and turned to spoken dialogue for the movie – the "What I once used to dream, I now dread..." part before "Twisted Every Way" – was reinstated as a sung section for the Japanese dub. The Phantom's speak-sung dialogue after the kiss in the final lair was also changed somewhat.

Now on to what makes or breaks any production of POTO – the cast. I was confident that I'd like Osamu Takai as the Phantom, as I'd heard several clips of him from the stage show. The one thing that irked me about him onstage was his tendency to put on an American accent. He's certainly not the only Japanese Phantom to do that, and it's nowhere near as egregious as when Yuichiro Yamaguchi (featured on the 1992 cast album) did it in nearly every role he played. However, in the film, Takai does away with that silly accent... except when he's supposed to adopt a mocking tone of voice, like in the "Why So Silent" scene or when he taunts Raoul in the final lair. I thought that approach worked quite well.

I was a bit worried that Takai would have to tone down his singing and acting to match Gerard Butler's on-screen performance – after all, that was a big part of what disappointed me about the Spanish-language dub of the movie, in which Juan Carlos Barona, a fantastic stage Phantom, had to really hold back vocally. Barona's still my favorite of the '04 movie Phantoms, but he could have been so much more if he'd been allowed to. Takai, though... I could believe that his character was a musical genius in a way that Butler could never convince me. His voice alone had more presence than the entire performances of most of the actors in the English version. He even made me appreciate certain things about Butler's acting a little more. It's still nowhere near my ideal approach for the role; certain "problem spots" like "Stranger Than You Dreamt It" are still unfortunately underwhelming... but Takai's voice made me take Butler's Phantom a little more seriously.

I'm pretty sure I'd heard Miyuki Numao as Christine in clips from the stage version, but all the Japanese Christines not featured on cast recordings have kind of blended together in my mind so that I can't remember who had what vocal / acting approach. That's pretty bad, I know... but nonetheless, I enjoyed Numao's performance in the movie. Emmy Rossum tends to get the most criticism from Phans when it comes to acting, but somehow, Numao made Rossum's constant "deer-in-the-headlights" portrayal work.

Masayuki Sano as Raoul... I wasn't sure what to think when I heard he'd be playing the part. I'd seen some clips of him as the Phantom, and aside from really not liking his acting, I couldn't imagine his voice working for Raoul at all, let alone Patrick Wilson's portrayal. When I actually saw the film, though, Sano surprised me – he toned down the vibrato a lot and was fairly convincing in terms of acting. He still sounded a little too old to fit Wilson's look, but I liked him a lot more than I thought I would.

The supporting cast was good as well – Carlotta was superb and did a good job of emulating Minnie Driver's over-the-topness. The managers were great, but as usual, seemed to have a bit of trouble getting around the sub-par lip-synching of Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow. Piangi sounded rather old, Meg was kind of unremarkable, and Mme. Giry thankfully didn't have an over-the-top accent.

One really interesting thing I noticed was that when the characters sang, the screen showed captions so viewers could follow along. Also, during the Overture, they had the credits onscreen with the names of the actors, director, and composer in English and Japanese (since they didn't have the credits at the end of the broadcast). They even included a bit in the credits about the fact that it was based (however loosely) on the novel by Gaston Leroux! There were also some rather amusing ads – you haven't lived until you've seen at least one commercial break on Japanese TV. (What especially amused me was that they had ads saying their next Friday night movie on that station would be Michael Jackson's This Is It. In fact, MJ apparently wanted to play the Phantom onstage… Not sure how that would have gone.)

It so happens that for some time, I've been working on a page for translating the Japanese lyrics. My thoughts on the translation will be featured in a future blog post, with a link to the lyrics once the page is ready. Until then, I wish you all a happy New Year!


Your obedient servant,
I.A.E.