Japanese cinema has not always been willing to contend with contentious social issues such as immigration. More recently, however, indie filmmakers in particular have been keen to critique the nation’s attitudes towards those who’ve come to make their home there. Like Akio Fujimoto’s Along the Sea, Lim Kah Wai’s Come and Go (カム・アンド・ゴー) explores the lives of those who’ve come to Japan, in this case Osaka, in search of a better life but have mostly encountered exploitation and prejudice while marginalised Japanese residents apparently fare little better.
Lim weaves his disparate tale around the discovery of a skeleton in a rundown part of town which is later found to belong to an elderly woman apparently reported missing six months previously. The comings and goings that we witness are an interconnected series of movements between a quartet of South Korean sex workers apparently trying their luck in Osaka because of an economic downturn at home, a tour group of wealthy Chinese tourists mainly interested in shopping, their guide, a Malaysian businessman in town for a presentation about tourism, a lost Japanese woman failing to make it as a hostess, an Okinawan porn producer literally pulling women off the street and embarrassing them into taking part in his videos, a Taiwanese sex tourist, a Vietnamese man on a “Technical Trainee” scheme but trapped in exploitative factory work, a student from Burma sexually harassed at the second of her part-time jobs, a Nepali refugee dreaming of opening a restaurant of his own, the Japanese teacher he is having an affair with, her husband the policeman, a middle-aged Japanese man embarking on a career as a rent-an-uncle, and a man being exploited while working in a car park who also seems to be mixed up with gangsters.
Osaka it seems is a busy place. Mr Lee, the man travelling with the Korean sex workers, harps on about the “Osaka dream” as if the city held some special allure but pretty much everyone is struggling, either exploiting or exploited by others. Like the three women of Along the Sea, Nam came to Osaka on the technical trainee programme but is treated badly by his unsympathetic boss who refuses to give him permission to return to Vietnam temporarily to visit his mother who has been taken ill. Nam too attempts to run away, contacting a Vietnamese friend who runs a restaurant for advice where he’s told to convert his technical trainee visa to a student one by enrolling in a language school so he can “come and go” as he pleases. This is the same language school where Yoshiko, the policeman’s wife currently having an affair with Nepali Refugee Musoun, works. We can see that her classes are barely attended, and when she asks her boss about apparently fake names on the roster, she’s told to make her attendance figures look better on paper. It’s clear that not everything is on the level at the school, the headmaster explaining to Nam he needs to pay a hefty fee to enrol but that’s OK because they can help him find a part-time job in return for a hefty part of his salary. Later picked up by the police, Nam runs into another Vietnamese guy who also left his technical trainee programme but now regrets it, claiming he was cheated by false promises and one of his friends even took his own life as a result.
Working at the same factory but as a part-timer, Burmese student Mimi finds something similar as she’s sexually harassed by the skeevy middle-aged boss at her second part-time job at a supermarket. While the men are forced to deal with labour exploitation and physical violence, the women are also subject to ingrained patriarchal values as evidenced by the preoccupation with sex and pornography among many of the male visitors such as sex tourist Xiao Kang who idly plays with sex toys in a store while lining up for an autograph from an AV actress, or the collection of sleazy Chinese businessmen demanding to be set up with authentic Japanese porn stars. The problem there is that porn producer Ryuji is deep in debt to yakuza loan sharks and has no women on his books, eventually brokering an unconvincing deal with Chinese tour guide Cheung and the South Korean pimp Lee to pass off the Korean sex workers as Japanese porn stars assuming that the Chinese won’t notice the difference because one woman’s as good as another. Meanwhile, conservative Malaysian family man William finds himself extremely uncomfortable when forced to conduct business in a hostess bar which his contact keeps insisting is how business gets done in Japan while unwilling to change his behaviour to accommodate his guest which is in itself ironic as William is there to advise them on boosting tourism from Malaysia through cultural awareness.
While well-meaning protestors take to the streets to hold an anti-discrimination rally, Kenji fairly points out that they preach acceptance for the international community but ignore mixed-ethnicity citizens like himself, something fully borne out by their rather defensive and somewhat prejudiced conversation when he leaves to use the bathroom. The police conference regarding the skeleton ends with the policeman lamenting that the modern society has become selfish and indifferent to the feelings of others placing wealth and convenience above community which is how an old woman’s body went undiscovered so long and apparently became mixed up in a complicated real estate scam. Even the Japanese rent-an-uncle is forging time-limited, compensated relationships with strangers while his own son ironically tries to convince him to retire to Malaysia so he can get his hands on the house. These people are all connected even if they don’t know it, all victims of the same oppressive system as the city moves all around them increasingly indifferent to their existence.
Trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 