'Rental Family' director recalls moving to US at 17

Hikari, a Japanese filmmaker, has made a new movie titled Rental Family, which reflects her experience when she moved to the US at the age of 17.

As it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, the director shares, "I came to America when I was 17 for the first time, and I landed in Utah."

She continues, "That was my first place to learn English. I was the only Asian girl in the entire city, I felt like.... I had to learn English, and I had to learn the culture.”

So, for the movie, Hikari says, she re-imagines her experience by swapping herself with an American in Japanese society.

"So, for me, bringing somebody — American guy — to Tokyo, what does that look like? Because there's a lot of things that you learn when you're the only person in the room," the director notes.

Brendan Fraser, who stars in the movie, recalls discussing the film's idea with the filmmaker Hikari.

"I learned about her life, about her aspirations, her interests, her unique experience of coming to America, and what that meant about the family that we find, and it not necessarily being the one that we're born into sometimes," The Mummy star adds.

He remembers, "I was perplexed and mystified and invigorated in all the best ways possible for meeting Hikari. And then..."

"Hey, I knew this story was unique. It's something that we need to see on screen," Brendan concludes. "And correct me if I'm wrong, I think we need to see this movie now more than ever these days."

The film's logline reads that an American actor goes to Japan in hopes of securing his big break. After that doesn’t work out, he takes up a job at an agency which hires actors to do stand-in roles for their clients."

Rental Family bows out in cinemas on Nov 21.