''Tokyo Cowboy'' is a 2023 comedy-drama film directed by Marc Marriott and written by

Ayako Fujitani is a Japanese actress and writer. She acts and writes in both Japanese and English. Early life Ayako Faith Fujitani was born in Osaka, Japan. She is the daughter of Steven Seagal by his first wife, aikido master Miyako Fujitani. Her parents sep ...

and

Dave Boyle Dave Boyle (born 1982) is an American director, writer, editor, and actor. He has written and directed several movies that utilize primarily Asian or Asian-American casts, including the feature films ''Big Dreams Little Tokyo'' (2006), ''White o ...

. An American and Japanese co-production, the film stars

Arata Iura , previously known as Arata, is a Japanese actor, model, and fashion designer. He is the Director of fashion brand Elnest Creative Activity. He holds the position of Director at the Artisan Culture Organisation Institute. Biography Iura co-sta ...

in his American film debut. He plays Hideki, a Japanese businessman aiming to turn a Montana-based cattle ranch into a profitable asset for the Japanese beef company he works for. The film marks director Marc Marriott's first narrative feature.

Plot

Japanese businessman Hideki (

) takes over a chocolate company built by its owner, a grandfather with no grandchildren to inherit the company. While buying over the chocolate company, he refuses to even taste its chocolate, showing how impersonal his business transactions are. When his boss and fiancée Keiko (

) threatens to sell a struggling

cattle ranch A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of landscape, land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often ap ...

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

to property developers, he convinces her that he can turn it into a profitable business that produces

wagyu beef Wagyu (, Hepburn romanization, Hepburn: ''wagyū'', ) is the collective name for the four principal List of Japanese cattle breeds, Japanese breeds of beef cattle. All wagyū cattle originate from early twentieth-century cross-breeding between ...

. He embarks on a trip to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to convince the American ranch owner. In Montana, he meets ranch owner Peg (

Robin Weigert Robin Weigert is an American television and film actress. She is best known for portraying Calamity Jane on the television series ''Deadwood'' (2004–2006), for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Suppor ...

) and

ranch hand A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquero ...

Javier (Gaya Robles). Due to cultural differences, he encounters difficulties with his original plan. The ranch hands dislike him, and they think he is just a foreign threat. The ranch itself is also not suitable for growing corn used to feed wagyu cows, and there are significant costs needed to rebuild the infrastructure needed. At a loss of what to do, his new friend Javier acclimatises Hideki to the ranch, teaching him the ways of the

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

. Hideki is initially extremely hesitant, being a city boy for all his life, despite his father owning a watermelon farm when he was a small boy. However, as Hideki grows to love the ranch and its people, putting in effort to learn its ways, he becomes a Tokyo Cowboy, impressing the ranch hands and the ranch owner Peg. Ultimately, Hideki and Javier came up with a brilliant but risky plan to buy over the ranch so that it would not be sold to

property developers Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

. They would use the money made from selling

quinoa Quinoa (''Chenopodium quinoa''; , from Quechuan languages, Quechua ' or ') is a flowering plant in the Amaranthaceae, amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are high in prote ...

that Javier was originally growing secretly on the ranch land. Peg agrees to it. Meanwhile, Hideki had been growing distant from Keiko, and had cancelled his supposed flight back to Japan so that he can stay to take care of the ranch. They had been supposed to go to an

onsen In Japan, are hot springs and the bathing facilities and Ryokan (inn), traditional inns around them. There are approximately 25,000 hot spring sources throughout Japan, and approximately 3,000 ''onsen'' establishments use naturally hot water ...

couple trip but she had had to cancel it because of him. Keiko then flew all the way to

to fire him and also to break off their five-year

engagement An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''f ...

, after feeling betrayed by him. With their relationship in shambles and with the threat of the ranch being sold off to property developers by Keiko, Hideki tries his best to salvage the situation by introducing Keiko to the ranch and telling her about their plan to buy over the ranch. Keiko is impressed by the ranch and his plan, and when Hideki shows that he had not forgotten her by bringing her to a hot springs he had found nearby, similar to onsen, and apologising for not asking her what she wanted from their relationship, they reconciled.

Cast

as Hideki *

as Keiko * Goya Robles as Javier *

as Peg *

Jun Kunimura is a Japanese actor who has performed in Cinema of Japan, Japan, the Cinema of the United States, United States, and Cinema of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He won Best Supporting Actor and the Popular Star Award at the 37th Blue Dragon Film Awards for ...

as Wada

Production

Development on the film was inspired by an American magazine article that director Marc Marriott came across upon his return to the United States from Japan, where he served as a filmmaking apprentice to

Yoji Yamada is a Japanese film director best known for his ''Otoko wa Tsurai yo'' series of films and his Samurai Trilogy ('' The Twilight Samurai'', '' The Hidden Blade'' and '' Love and Honor''). Biography Yamada was born in Osaka, but due to his father' ...

. The magazine article covered a Japanese beef company which purchased a cattle ranch in Montana "to expand its operations". The company sent

salarymen The term is a Japanese word for salaried workers. In Japanese popular culture, it is portrayed as a white-collar worker who shows unwavering loyalty and commitment to his employer, prioritizing work over anything else, including family. "Salary ...

to the ranch in order to educate its staff on American cattle farming, as well as to introduce Americans to "the Japanese

palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sep ...

stars as Hideki, marking his American film debut. Filming took place in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

and Montana. Filming in Montana primarily took place in Paradise Valley. Oscar Ignacio Jiménez serves as the film's cinematographer.

Release

''Tokyo Cowboy'' premiered at the

Tallgrass Film Festival The Tallgrass Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Wichita, Kansas, specializing in independent films. It was founded in 2003 by Timothy Gruver. Gruver was raised in Wichita. He studied filmmaking at Brigham Young University. After ...

in October 2023. Through Purdie Distribution, it had a limited theatrical release in the United States on August 30, 2024.

Reception

Critical response

The film has an 91% approval rating on the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 11 reviews. Writing for ''

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

'', Bekah McCallum wrote that "Due to the somewhat predictable storyline, the plot strikes a

Hallmark A hallmark is an official Mark (sign), mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term ''Wikti ...

-esque tone, but the overall film offers a bit more gravity than other family-friendly flicks. The path to forgiveness isn't straightforward, so the positive ending doesn't come across as wholly unrealistic." Writing for the ''

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'', Roland Kelts wrote that ''Tokyo Cowboy'' "is charming and beautifully shot", calling the film "a refreshing, transcultural role-reversal drama". Writing for ''CineGods'', Ray Greene stated "An art film that's also a crowdpleaser, ''Tokyo Cowboy'' has a big heart, and deserves any audience it finds."

Box office

The film has grossed $269,625, with $149,575 coming from its domestic release and $120,050 coming from international markets.

Accolades

In its film festival run, ''Tokyo Cowboy'' was a winner at the Tallgrass,

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Sedona Sedona ( ) is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2010 census, its population was 10,031. The city is within the Coconino Nati ...

, and

St. Louis International Film Festival The St. Louis International Film Festival (also known as SLIFF or Cinema St. Louis) is an annual film festival in St. Louis, Missouri, which has been running since 1992. The coordinating organization changed its name to "Cinema St. Louis" in 200 ...

References

External links

*
''Tokyo Cowboy'' at Letterboxd
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tokyo Cowboy 2020s American films 2020s Japanese films 2023 comedy-drama films 2023 drama films 2023 independent films 2023 romantic drama films Cowboy culture Films about cattle Films about companies Films produced by Brigham Taylor Films set in Montana Films set in Tokyo Films shot in Montana Films shot in Tokyo Films with screenplays by Dave Boyle Foreign films set in the United States