What would you do if you lived in Japan? (Only relating to movies)

[chasmmi]

Living in Korea, I am lucky that Hollywood often chooses to release major films over here before almost anywhere else in the world. I was able to see Civil War five days ago, and that's pretty cool for example. 

 

Every now and again though, a film gets released here quite a distance after the USA release date (I am looking at you Jungle Book!) and it is torture having to negotiate websites and youtube channels I enjoy hoping not to be spoiled by  folks innocently assuming people interested in a film will have seen it within 1 or two weeks of domestic release dates. (Antman was particularly hard in this respect as it was a Marvel release and so talked about all the time). 

 

This brought me to Japan. Major Hollywood films are regularly released there 6 months or more after the rest of the world. This may be okay to Japanese people accustomed to that fact, but how would you as a foreigner that is used to watching a film in sync with the rest of the world cope would that?

 

Could you patiently wait for cinematic releases and avoid spoilers for months?

Would you be tempted to pirate just so you can be part of the conversation?

Would you go crazy?

 

What would you do?

[WrathOfHan]

I already lose my mind on here when I have to wait until the weekend to see movies, I would never last in Japan  

[Kalo]

Having to wait a week after most audiences has seen Civil War is torture. And It's ridiculous to release movies six months apart in different territories, though. it seems like the hype would be gone and lots of people would get bootlegged anyway, they really should try and limit how long you are able to release a film apart in different countries. like maybe a mouth. 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2016 by Kalo

[cannastop]

The problem is that most successful movies in Japan are released in only three times in the year. Golden Week in late April and Early May, Obon Festival in July or August, and the Christmas season in December.

Any big movie that could be big in the USA in May or June might be moved all the way to July. And November released are delayed until December, or if they don't fit there, they get pushed to March to take advantage of the lesser competition.

[chasmmi]

17 hours ago, cannastop said:

The problem is that most successful movies in Japan are released in only three times in the year. Golden Week in late April and Early May, Obon Festival in July or August, and the Christmas season in December.

Any big movie that could be big in the USA in May or June might be moved all the way to July. And November released are delayed until December, or if they don't fit there, they get pushed to March to take advantage of the lesser competition.

 

Oh I can fully appreciate that that works for Japanese people in Japan and for cinema there in general. But I would be a non-Japanese person in Japan and that would be a problem for me as I would essentially have to quit websites such as this that would spoil everything for me most of the time.

 

Being in Korea I am luckier, but I find myself severely tempted by online downloads and torrents when it comes to things like say Zoolander 2 which never got released here, DVD is dead so I cannot buy it on sale at a DVD store and importing the DVD from the UK would set me back 20-30 quid just to see if a film is as bad as people say.

 

(If there is a reasonable online film download/streaming site that a) works in Korea  is reasonable, c) is legal and d) has between and all recent releases available at the same time as their DVD release date, that would be lovely. Things like Netflix only seem to focus in older/Netflix original films that I am not so interested in getting hold of

  

[cannastop]

@chasmmi
Well, there might be some people in Japan who don't like the release schedules, but it's hard to break the trends.

And why would you want to watch Zoolander 2 anyways?

[Kvikk Lunsj]

48 minutes ago, cannastop said:

@chasmmi
Well, there might be some people in Japan who don't like the release schedules, but it's hard to break the trends.

And why would you want to watch Zoolander 2 anyways?

But he is saying if he was in Japan it would be hard on him.  Imagine if you could watch Zootopia until July. 

[chasmmi]

On ‎05‎/‎05‎/‎2016 at 2:37 AM, Dexter of Suburbia said:

But he is saying if he was in Japan it would be hard on him.  Imagine if you could watch Zootopia until July. 

 

A little late to reply for this but that is exactly what I meant.

 

Case in point, it was hard waiting until this week to see Ghostbusters and Lights Out in Korea and I didn't really care about those. Japan releases films I do care about months after anywhere else and I believe that would potentially drive me to see less films at the cinema and more through more untowards means despite hating to do that. I like going to the cinema (I've been 19 times this year and that will likely get close to at least 30 by the end of the year, I know that's nothing compared to some on here, but it's still a significant number in a country that gets about 90 Hollywood releases a year )

 

 

[SchumacherFTW]

Thing for me is the flip side element when it comes to Japan. There's at least 5 movies that have come out there so far this year that I really want to see, and there's a good chance only one of those will actually make it in to a British cinema (Godzilla). I'd just switch out the Hollywood movies I want to see with Japanese ones. 

[xequalsy]

Personally, spoilers don't really bother me that much unless it's for like a thriller film or something where going in knowing the twist/ending/big set pieces might lessen the tension which the film thrives on. So on that front I wouldn't mind not seeing Jungle Book for example for 6 months whilst others talked all about it.

 

Especially with action-y films like Marvel films. I dig the plots and all, but I watch them for the joy of seeing big fun set pieces and seeing super heroes come to life on the big screen. 

 

Though obviously I'd probably be much less hyped for the big films, just because 6 months later most people have moved onto the next big thing in Hollywood. It's especially obvious here when even three weeks later, only the fans post things in threads that aren't CBMs and Ghostbusters (). It's still okay if I wound up liking the film though since mostly there'll be an active community of fans somewhere for you to share your joy about the film with. (Though I must admit following the BO run then must seem very strange, been mostly looking backwards at runs without quite the thrill of following along as it goes. Unless it's stuff like Zootopia I guess where Japan and whether it would reach 1b was pretty exciting).

 

And living in Japan would have its own benefits of things like being able to check out the new Conan films on release (though this would assume I'd eventually be able to watch unsubbed Japanese films).