X Japan is not just that country’s most successful band, it is also one of the oldest ones as it was originally formed way back in 1982. With their extreme outfits and outrageous hair styles, their brand of highly theatrical glam metal has made them iconic figures in Asia but they never ever been able to repeat any of that success at all in the US. This new documentary is therefore about their attempts to rectify that with their first major gig in Madison Square Gardens, but as we soon find out, they may have just left it too late as their style of music is now rather passé.
The band’s two main members Yosjiki and Toshi have been friends since kindergarten, and were still teenagers when they formed the band. Their first record released 6 years later was steeped with punk and metal influences but they added strings and pianos to make it play better in Japan where real heavy metal was not very big at at all. Sudden success and all its trappings very soon created a great deal of friction within the band and led to them firing the bass player, and then when Toshi went off to join a cult, they suspended the band completely right at the peak of their success.
The facts of their re-start after a decade of silence and also the
revelations that two ex-members of the band ended up committing suicide are touched on but somewhat evasively. Although Yoshiki talks about one as being an ‘accident’ we are left high and dry trying to put the puzzle together with most of the pieces missing. He is a very complex person who seemingly has to have pain relieving shots to practically every part of his body and when he performs on stage as both the drummer and pianist he does so with such energy that he claims to collapse as he runs out of oxygen so they now have tanks on standby for him. The two blonde women who accompany him everywhere are never explained at all.
There are parts of this profile that seem far too much a like a promotional video with cameos of the likes of David Lynch, Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Kiss’s Gene Simmons who all unanimously rave about the group. Which at least is better than the movie’s writer/director Stephen Kijak who is a rock-doc specialist allegedly had never heard of them before he was asked to make this film.
Before we get to the main event …..the actual gig… there is attempts to paint a fuller picture of Yoshiki showing hm composing some very restrained and subdued pieces on the piano, one of which he creates and gets to play for the Emperor’s Anniversary.
The show itself is a pyrotechnical extravaganza elaborately staged into visual overload that it almost manages to overwhelm the music itself. The vast arena is filled with thousands of die-fans …. the vast majority of them being Japanese …. and so a good time is had by all. We can only assume as as this made zero impact on the lucrative American market, the band went back to being put on pedestals back home.
Labels:
