![\"\"](\"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/_sys2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/IMG_0473-1024x577.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u00a9 kuzoku<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As I had very little background knowledge about this movie, I wasn\u2019t too sure whether I was actually qualified to review it, but seeing it meaningfully announced as \u201ca long preview\u201d right at the beginning made me feel much more comfortable. It was going to be \u201cnot the main film,\u201d so I was looking forward to taking my time to get into it. However that feeling was accompanied by a burning kind of sensation that I was well familiar with. It was the kind of feeling that Japanese people have when entering a country in Southeast Asia. What was decisively different though from my own feeling when landing in Bangkok was the fact that Young-G, the traveling protagonist of this story, has a clear purpose that he defines in his murmur about \u201cfinding hip-hop in this country (Cambodia).\u201d The sceneries the viewer witnesses at the beginning of the movie, however, make a rather unlikely setting for the music of the big city. We see the half-naked, sun-tanned young man catch a bird and pluck its feathers (probably with the aim to grill and eat it), and enter a CD store, only to be flatly told that they have no vinyl records, and even if they had some they\u2019d cost a fortune. Along the river, we see swimming children and grown-ups throwing out their fishing nets. Slightly sulky, Young-G withdraws to his hotel room and watches a Japanese TV program. I somehow understand him, the way he feels, even though in my case I wasn\u2019t really looking for something particular, and being in Southeast Asia, I would snuggle down with the young Thais who were just as fed up with their boring routine \u2013 even though it was the city of Bangkok after all \u2013 rather than go out to the Thai countryside, let alone to Cambodia, in pursuit of music.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As soon as Young-G arrives at his destination, the office of an independent hip-hop label called \u201dKlapYaHandz,\u201d ha can\u2019t stop exclaiming how \u201ccool\u201d everything is. I know that too. I\u2019d been marveling at things I found \u201ccool\u201d a number of times in Bangkok as well, and as we\u2019re talking about the rapidly growing Phnom Penh here, it\u2019s all the more understandable.\u00a0This place is far from what was a developing country just a little while ago. It is a difference too large to bridge with words like \u201csocial polarization\u201d or \u201ccultural gap.\u201d The interior of the building is in perfect condition; it is filled with spirited-looking rappers and fluently English-speaking staff, and fitted with a well-equipped studio. So Young-G introduces himself while continuing to marvel at \u201dhow cool it is to have an entire building for themselves,\u201d and \u201chow cool it is to be part of a big film production company.\u201d The people at the office don\u2019t hide their surprise when hearing that Young-G and his mates are running an independent record label \u201cat a place about two hours from Tokyo.\u201d In a country where \u201ctwo hours from the city\u201d is tantamount to \u201cpoor country life,\u201d it seems to be difficult to convey the disposition of contemporary Japanese people who deliberately move away from the metropolitan area.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a9 kuzoku<\/p>\n
Young-G\u2019s purpose is assumedly not as simple as something like \u201cmutual understanding trough music,\u201d but it doesn\u2019t seem to be a journey on which he, as a DJ, aims to just \u201cdiscover some rare music\u201d either. The movie ends with a scene in which Young-G plays a tune on his iPhone, and Cambodian rappers get together for an improvised vocal performance. That\u2019s not happening on the \u201dstreet\u201d but on the \u201cbuilding\u2019s rooftop,\u201d which again seems to be symbolic of something. I suppose this is where the \u201cmain film\u201d and the story of Young-G and his friends is going to pick up. There was some conversation about Pol Pot and music along the way, and when imagining that it will probably be about Japan and Cambodia, and how the young people face the present, past and future with all the hopeless twists and ruptures, I feel kind of touched even before watching the actual movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Translated by Andreas Stuhlmann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a9 kuzoku As I had very little background knowledge about this movie, I wasn\u2019t too sure whether I was ac […]","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":2455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2473,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448\/revisions\/2473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}