Today, December 1, is Movie Day in Japan, marking the country’s first public screening of a film in 1896. So it’s only fitting that we ask about notable movie scenes depicting Japanese cars. We’re not talking about petrolhead movies necessarily, and in fact the vehicle in question doesn’t even need to be the hero car. Nor does it have to be involved in a pivotal action scene. In fact, we’re looking for blink-and-you’ll miss it appearances, the more obscure the better. For example, we’ll never forget the time in Mission to Mars when Gary Sinese briefly drove the Isuzu VX-O2 concept, essentially an open-top VehiCross for a few seconds on-screen.
Which movie scene forever seared a Japanese car into your brain?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “Which car had the best evolution between generations?“.
Surprisingly, no one mentioned the Mitsubishi Lance Evolution, even though evolution is right there in the name. Nevertheless, last week’s answers were a who’s who of Japanese cars. Icons like Rotor Nutcase‘s Mazda Miata, ynori‘s Nissan Skyline/GT-R, and streetspirit‘s Honda Prelude all evolved into progressively better machines with each successive generation.
Others offered models that stopped improving at a generation. You could even say they regressed, like Nigel‘s pre-seventh-gen Honda Civic, speedie‘s pre-A90 Toyota Supra, and Land Ark‘s pre-fifth-gen Subaru Legacy. We’d probably have to rein in Random Rascal‘s Subaru WRX lineage at the VB.
Left-field answers included Franxou‘s limb-growing Daihatsu Midget, and Dillon‘s entirely truthful account of the now-gorgeous Toyota Prius. Two different people, entirehawg and Taylor C., chose the Infiniti G, which transformed from an FF Nissan Primera into an FR Skyline.
However, the winner this week was Dutch 1960, who gave a succinct but accurate description of the Mazda RX-7.
Mazda RX7. First gen SA/FB simple, cheap, light. Second gen FC sophisticated, comfortable, capable, easy to live with day-to-day, at least until it got old. Third gen FD world-beating street-legal race car of its day, light, fussy, spectacular, fragile. Choose your favorite, three distinctive flavors. As you move from one to the next, the driving excitement moves up the scale.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
Full Throttle: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113651/
Not Japanese cars, but classic 250cc Japanese sport bikes. We never got this era of bike in Canada, but they looked really damn cool flashing around the hills of Hong Kong. It’s actually not a very good movie at all, but growing up in the Toronto-area in the 1990s meant we got a full selection of Hong Kong’s golden era films every Saturday night on the local multicultural channel. As a budding gearhead, this movie was a gateway into an entirely new direction.
And I just found the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdYd3YKTCqQ
This one is easy for me. As I read the question, the answer popped right out like word association. Cannonball Run. I remember watching this when it came out in ’81 as a young lad. The Subaru (DL) hatchback that Jackie Chan and Jaws co-piloted. I loved cars in general but I saw this quick, little Japanese ride and was mesmerized. It was high-tech and gadgety and It even turned into a submarine and kept on racing. That is a fond memory of when I actually started loving Japanese cars from watching one on screen.
Hon. Mention: The Mitsubishi Starion/Conquest that Jackie drove in the second CBR movie 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AQVDZpJlGM
I seemed to have mixed up the two movies. The Submarine scene with Jaws was in the Mitsubishi and from the 2nd movie. That’s the scene embedded in my head.
恐竜・怪鳥の伝説, Kyōryū Kaichō no Densetsu; lit. Legend of Dinosaurs and Ominous Birds. There were unforgetable scenes with Toyota Land Cruiser.
The car that most quickly comes to mind is the MAT (Monster Attack Team) Vehicle, a L10A Mazda Cosmo Sport from the Ultraman series. Ironically, the first car featured in Ultraman series was a stock first generation Corvair used by the SSSP (Science Special Search Party). Off screen the car was owned by the show Producer who used the car as his daily driver. He would arrive at work, apply the reuseable SSSP stickers and begin filming.
Sonatine, MS132 Crown.
This scene in particular: http://bit.ly/4pND0DT
P.S. Beat Takeshi forever.
Bond, James Bond… More specifically “You Only Live Twice” Toyota 2000GT. Movie fun fact: two special convertible variants were made for the movie as Sean Connery was too tall for the coupe.
In the last few decades it would probably be the Devil Z from the Wangan Midnight movie (although it was based off a manga, I only saw the movie). Mostly because it gave the car a personality that made it memorable.
If I go way back to the first movies that really seared Japanese cars into my brain, that might not be a single movie, but rather Jackie Chan’s movies from the mid-80s to mid-90s. So many of his movies had entertaining car chases and stunts involving numerous Japanese cars from the 70s and up. The movies were shot and cut so well you couldn’t take your eyes off the screen, and so many of those scenes are still memorable for me to this day.
The opening scene to the first episode of Initial D. I found out via my Hot Wheels collection and related websites and once I heard that the Toyota AE-86 was featured in an anime I tracked down a few pirated episodes on YouTube (this was 2016). I was Just turned 17 when I started watching it after having read Death Note in Manga form and seen almost all of Sword Art Online (SAO). When I learned that there was a street racing anime, I hunted down episodes and watched some in English sub and others in English dub. That opening scene with the song ‘Space Boy’ was the spark that turned into an obsession with Japanese cars and culture.