Produced at the height of Japan’s bubble economy, Ridley Scott’s Black Rain (1989) captures a sense of cultural anxiety.
Set in a neon-lit, dystopian Osaka that visually echoes Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), the film portrays Japan as both alluring and alien. Michael Douglas stars as Nick, a morally ambiguous NYPD detective whose desperation to assert control may be construed as emblematic of the West’s struggle to reconcile economic rivalry with cultural fascination.
The contrast between Masahiro Matsumoto, played by Ken Takakura, an honourable cop who acts as Nick’s moral compass, and the menacing yakuza Sato, delivered in Yusaku Matsuda’s indelible posthumous performance, emphasises the paradoxical picture of Japan.