After discovering the Black Rain screenplay by Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis, Michael Douglas brought the project to producers Stanley R. Jaffe and Sherry Lansing, who had worked with him on the high-grossing Fatal Attraction. ‘When Michael invited us to produce Black Rain with him, Sherry and I were thrilled,’ Jaffe remembers.
Black Rain was filmed on locations in New York City, Osaka, Japan and environs, and at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. The movie is the first American film to have been produced in Osaka, Japan’s third-largest metropolis (after Tokyo and Yokohama). Osaka is a city that is unfamiliar to moviegoers. Even local productions are rarely shot in Japan’s big cities as narrow streets packed with pedestrians, motorists and bicycle riders make crowd control a problem.
‘If you look at most contemporary Japanese movies, you’ll see very few extras and very few staged scenes on city streets,’ Jaffe comments. ‘Our production is unique in that we were able to shoot some of our scenes in the streets under controlled circumstances, as would be done in the United States. It wasn’t easy to arrange, but this was important to us.’
‘Beyond learning a different culture and a different language, one also has to know the subtleties of Japanese customs to do business there,’ Lansing remarks. ‘Fortunately, we had excellent interpreters on the set at all times. And we were especially lucky that our associate producer Alan Poul spoke fluent Japanese.’
During the pre-production period, Ridley Scott travelled to Japan many times during a period of eight months. ‘There was extensive location-hunting, which was more than looking at buildings and various cityscapes,’ Scott says. ‘This was a time to get a feel for the country and to try to understand the people. Throughout the pre-production period and the shooting of the movie, it was a continual learning process; observing and absorbing more and more about the Japanese culture.’
When Scott first arrived in Japan, he found the country to be very different from his expectations. ‘Most of Japan’s cities are modern and utilitarian, so the production designer Norris Spencer and I had to endlessly search beneath the surface to find the unique textures. Like most of the big cities in the world, those in Japan are rapidly becoming homogenised behind plexiglass and concrete surfaces.’
Prior to principal photography, Michael Douglas began researching his role of NYPD homicide cop Nick Conklin. His technical advisor was police detective Mike Sheehan. During the late summer and early fall of 1988, Douglas accompanied Sheehan as he worked in the Manhattan North precinct above 59th Street. Most of the time Douglas went entirely unrecognised. ‘He went with me to the scene of an assault in Harlem,’ Sheehan recalls. ‘The crowd assumed he was another detective.’
Sheehan also took Douglas to gathering spots favoured by NYPD detectives, who told him about their lives. Just prior to travelling to Japan, Douglas was with Sheehan on the headline-making night two New York City policemen were shot and killed. Sheehan and Douglas attended the investigation at the scene of the crime.
‘I purposely avoided going to Japan for preliminary research,’ Douglas relates. ‘In Black Rain Nick Conklin finds himself in Japan for the first time and I thought it would help my characterisation if my experiences could be similar to his.’
To research her role, Kate Capshaw worked one four-hour shift at Arujan, an exclusive Osaka hostess club. Capshaw devoted her attention to one man at each of the six tables that she was assigned, spending 45 minutes per table. ‘We were expected to dance with men, spoonfeed them, rub their backs, keep their drinks filled, and giggle at their jokes,’ she relates.
Upon their arrival in Japan, the filmmakers were invited by Osaka’s mayor, police chief and Prefectural Governor to official welcome meetings, which were attended by dozens of local media crews. The filmmakers were presented with special medallions and keys to the city.
Principal photography for Black Rain began in Osaka on October 31, 1988 after the arrival of the American crew of 45 and the Japanese crew from Tokyo of more than 100. Each shot of the action sequences filmed in Japan had to be carefully planned by Scott, who used storyboards as a communication tool for the Japanese crew.
Realism was Scott’s objective. Japanese characterisations had to be authentic. Scott spent many weeks involved in the process of placing the Japanese actors in the roles. ‘I wanted to present the Japanese as the world now perceives them: a modern, advanced nation. I didn’t ignore traditional cultural aspects, but I wanted to provide glimpses of contemporary Japan that would be very different from those of a tourist.’
‘The story takes place at a time when two cultures are coming together because of history, politics and economics,’ Warren Lewis comments. In writing the action sequences for the film with Craig Bolotin, Lewis observes that ‘the goal was not achieving the biggest explosion or shoot-out, but a consistency of story with the environment and people.’
Production designer Norris Spencer was in Japan for five-and-a-half months, working with Ridley Scott to find locations and coordinating the extensive preparatory work. The production team included art directors, set decorators, draftsmen, illustrators and technical advisors. In Japan there were four teams of set dressers; with two teams working during filming in New York and Los Angeles.
During the first week, filming took place in Osaka’s magnificent Prefectural building. Built in 1929, the Art Deco-style building served as the offices of the Osaka police for the film. The following week, the company relocated to the narrow streets of Osaka’s Kyobashi district for exterior scenes. ‘I’ll never forget the way the Japanese reacted upon seeing Ken-san,’ Douglas says. ‘I haven’t seen that kind of adulation in the United States for anybody but Bruce Springsteen.’
The Dotonbori district, the center of Osaka’s night life with more electrical pyrotechnics than Times Square, was the location for a week of night shooting after Ridley Scott selected the newly constructed Kirin Plaza building, dominating the Ebisubashi Bridge, as the exterior for the film’s Club Miyako.
Black Rain also filmed in Osaka at two steel mills, the Hankyu Arcade, and at a metropolitan three-tiered golf driving range. Location shooting in Japan concluded at Osaka’s Central Fish Market.
Production notes
Black Rain
Director: Ridley Scott
©: Pegasus Film Partners, Jaffe-Lansing Productions, Michael Douglas, Paramount Pictures
Executive Producers: Craig Bolotin, Julie Kirkham
Producers: Stanley R. Jaffe, Sherry Lansing
Line Producer (Japan): Yosuke Mizuno
Associate Producer: Alan Poul
Production Associate: Mimi Polk
Unit Production Managers: Michael Tadross, William Watkins, Mel Dellar, David Salven
Production Office Co-ordinators: Debbie Schwab, Terry Ladin, Patt McCurdy
Location Managers: Ken Haber, Eric Klosterman, Robert Doyle, Sheldon Shkolnik
Location Managers (Japan): Atsushi Takayama, Kenichi Horii, Susumu Ejima, Kazuaki Enomoto
2nd Unit Director: Bobby Bass
Assistant Directors: Aldric La’auli Porter, Benjamin Rosenberg, Jodi Ehrlich, Bettiann Fishman, Bob Lewis, Eric Wall
Casting: Dianne Crittenden
Additional Casting: Melissa Skoff
Casting (Japan): Nobuaki Murooka
Screenplay: Craig Bolotin, Warren Lewis
Director of Photography: Jan De Bont
Additional Photography: Howard Atherton
Aerial Photographer: David Nowell
Camera Operators: Craig Haagensen, Alexander Witt
Video Co-ordinator: Mary Ellen Brennan
Special Effects Supervisors: Stan Parks, Kenneth Pepiot, Kevin Quibell
Editors: Tom Rolf, William Gordean
Additional Editor: Jacqueline Cambas
Production Designer: Norris Spencer
Art Directors: John Jay Moore, Herman Zimmerman
Art Director (Japan): Kazuo Takenaka
Set Designers: Alan S. Kaye, Robert Maddy, James Bayliss
Set Decorators: John Alan Hicks, Leslie Bloom, Richard C. Goddard, John M. Dwyer
Set Decorator (Japan): Kyoji Sasaki
Illustrator: Sherman Labby
Scenic Artist: Robert A. Woolfe
Art Department Technical Adviser: Michael W. Hirabayashi
Costume Designers: Ellen Mirojnick, Jennifer L. Parsons, Elaine Maser, Joseph L. Gruca
Wardrobe Supervisors: Melissa Stanton, William A. Campbell
Wardrobe (Japan Supervisor): Kazuko Shimada
Make-up Artists: Richard Dean, Christina Smith, Monty Westmore, Fred Blau, Neal Martz
Make-up (Prosthetics): Richard Alonzo, Allan A. Apone, Kenneth David Walker, Mark Maitre, Arnold Gargiulo
Make-up (Tattoo Artist): Michael Hancock
Main Title Design: Anthony Goldschmidt, Cinema Research Corporation
Music: Hans Zimmer
Music Conductor/Orchestrations: Shirley Walker
Music Supervisor: Dick Rudolph
Supervising Music Editor: James Flamberg
Music Recording: Jay Rifkin
Sound Recording: Keith A. Wester, James J. Sabat
Sound Re-recording: Don Mitchell, Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell
Supervising Sound Editors: Milton C. Burrow, William L. Manger
Additional Sound Effects: Stephen Dewey, Musikwerks
Stunt Co-ordinator: Bobby Bass
Cast
Michael Douglas (Nick Conklin)
Andy Garcia (Charlie Vincent)
Ken Takakura (Masahiro Matsumoto)
Kate Capshaw (Joyce Kingsley)
Yusaku Matsuda (Sato)
Shigeru Koyama (Ohashi)
John Spencer (Oliver)
Guts Ishimatsu (Katayama)
Yuya Uchida (Nashida)
Tomisaburo Wakayama (Sugai)
Miyuki Ono (Miyuki)
Luis Guzmán (Frankie)
John Costelloe (The Kid)
Stephen Root (Berg)
Richard Riehle (Crown)
Bruce Katzman (Yudell)
Edmund Ikeda (Japanese businessman)
Tomo Nagasue (Japanese translator)
Clem Caserta (Abolofia)
Tim Kelleher (Bobby)
George Kyle (Farentino)
Vondie Curtis Hall, Joe Perce, Louis Cantarini (detectives)
Doug Yasuda (Japanese/American translator)
Toshio Sato (Japanese Embassy official)
Jun Kunimura (Yoshimoto)
Roy K. Ogata, Shiro Oishi (Sato’s men)
Toru Tanaka, Rikiya Yasuoka, Joji Shimaki (Sugai’s men)
Goro Sasa, Taro Ibuki, Daisuke Awaji (Ohashi’s men)
Keone Young (karaoke singer)
Jim Ishida (escort officer)
Shotaro Hayashi, Toshishiro Obata (mediators)
Michiko Tsushima (noodle woman)
Linda Gillen (Peggy)
John Gotay (Danny)
Matthew Porac (Patrick)
Ken Kensei (Masahiro’s son)
Josip Elic (bartender)
Mitchell Bahr (friend)
USA 1989
125 mins
Digital
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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