An acclaimed independent film by a Michigan-born director gets officially released next week.
One Night in Tokyo, the feature debut from Josh Woodcock, will be available to buy or rent via video on demand on Friday, Feb. 14.
The Valentine’s Day release is fitting for the romantic drama, which Woodcock previously described to Metro Times as “what would it be like if John Hughes made a French New Wave film set in Japan?”
The film stars Sam (Reza Emamiyeh), a white American who travels to Japan to visit his girlfriend and suddenly finds himself dumped. Heartbroken and waiting for a flight back to the U.S., he meets Ayaka (Tokiko Kitagawa), who takes him out for the night despite the language barrier.
“I think the characters resonated with me because they feel real,” Woodcock previously told Metro Times, adding that the script was inspired by his wife, who once wound up having a long layover in Korea. “They have their own faults, and I think they’re all relatable snapshots of someone in their late 20s or early 30s, looking at their lives and the paths they’ve taken and where they’ve wound up, and [asking] do we have control over getting ourselves a little closer to where we want to be.”
Woodcock previously played guitar in Detroit-area punk bands like Hit Society and the Ill Itches before pivoting to video production. He says he wrote the screenplay for One Night in Tokyo in just three weeks and shot the entire film in a whirlwind seven days in Japan, which he fell in love with while making a documentary film series for the U.S. Navy. The entire production took about four months, he said.
The movie has earned buzz at indie film festivals in 2024, winning the Audience Award for Best Drama Narrative at San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival, best Feature Film Submission at the Japanese-American Global Stage Hollywood festival in Los Angeles, and Jury Award (Cinematography) at Michigan’s Hell’s Half Mile Film and Music Festival.
Woodcock is now based in Seattle, where he launched his film production company Kitsune Pictures.
The trailer for One Night in Tokyo is below.
