How this Latter-day Saint missionary’s experience inspired this highly rated movie

Marc Marriott arrived in Japan as a missionary as a loud American who needed to find a little humility to learn to connect to other people and another culture. The uplifting and enjoyable movie he made to capture those themes is a hit with reviewers and audiences and opens on Utah’s Wasatch Front this weekend.
“Tokyo Cowboy” has earned a 90% positive rating from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, where audiences approve at 97%.
The film is about a Japanese businessman who goes on an unwitting journey of self-discovery when he convinces his company to let him travel to Montana to turn around a cattle ranching operation.
The man, Hideki Sakai (played by Arata Iura), is disconnected from his job, his fiancee (played by co-writer Ayako Fujitani) and everyone else. The other characters are also disconnected, and everyone seems to be trying to protect themselves by staying that way.
“Hideki says he’s connected to the land, but he’s not,” Marriott said. “He pretends like he’s connected to his fiancee, but he’s really not. He’s not very happy in his job, but he doesn’t realize this until he goes through this experience.”
Once Sakai meets another outsider on the Montana ranch, he and everyone else begin to connect and evolve.
“It’s a film that’s about bridging the divides between people. It’s about finding things in common. … And it’s about opening your heart to another culture and other people, and kind of finding some humility which relates back to my experience in Japan.”
The movie is building audiences by word of mouth in Japan and the United States.
“We need people to go to the theaters,” Marriott said. “Theatrical success drives all the other markets, like video on demand and streaming.”
“Tokyo Cowboy” may be a small independent film, but it feels much larger in the hands of skilled filmmakers showing off the gorgeous landscapes of “Big Sky Country” in Montana’s Paradise Valley.
A review published by Film Threat called the movie “one of those films that Hollywood would ruin if it had the chance.”
Marriott said he learned to be quieter and to listen more during his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1986-88.
He apprenticed with legendary Japanese filmmaker Yoji Yamada after his mission. “Yamada makes films like this,” Marriott said. “He makes films with a lot of humor in them, a lot of heart.”
During his time as an apprentice, Marriott saw a magazine story about a Japanese company that sent workers to Montana to learn how to become cowboys.
When he returned to the United States, his plans to be a feature film director were placed on hold for decades while he built an award-winning career in television.
He shared his idea about a Tokyo businessman as a fish out of water in Montana with longtime Disney executive Brigham Taylor (an executive over “Pirates of the Caribbean” and executive producer of the live-action version of “The Jungle Book”). The two knew each other as Brigham Young University students and volunteers at the Sundance Film Lab.
Marriott directed “Tokyo Cowboy” and Taylor was the producer. They developed the story together. They handed the job of creating the script to a specially selected duo.
“Recruiting our two screenwriters, a native Japanese woman who had moved to America and a Japanese-speaking American who had lived in Japan, was the first step in building this emotionally authentic story,” Taylor said in a statement.
“We wanted to make a film that was true to these characters,” Marriott said, “that depicted them all as people and didn’t make caricatures of them or the cultures.”
Those characters include Robin Weigert, a fixture in American television, playing the Montana ranch manager whose livelihood is under siege. Weigert’s talents in a supporting role add humor, warmth and depth to the story’s stakes.
“If you’re a person who doesn’t go to the movies much anymore because you feel like there’s nothing there for you, this is probably a film that you would really like and you can bring your family and go enjoy a theatrical experience again,” Marriott said.
“Tokyo Cowboy” has been playing in Japan for three months. Marriott said it will be one of the year’s most successful independent films in that country.
Documentary television viewers may know Marriott’s work on the History Channel’s “AX MEN” or the Discovery Channel’s “Roush Racing: Driver X.” Some Latter-day Saints will be familiar with work he directed on “The District,” a documentary film about missionaries that was used to train future missionaries.
“Tokyo Cowboy” is his first feature film. He earned the Emerging Director Award from at the St. Louis International Film Festival for “Tokyo Cowboy,” which has won several honors for best narrative feature from mid-level and smaller film festivals, like the Zions International Film Festival in Utah.
Major film festivals are programming movies that are extreme and controversial, Marriott said.
He said the company distributing “Tokyo Cowboy” in Japan says it is finding an audience “because it feels like a film from a different time. It feels like a really warm, hopeful, uplifting kind of film.”
“Tokyo Cowboy” is playing in two Utah locations, Megaplex Theatres at The District in South Jordan and the Capitol Theatre in Brigham City. The Megaplex showtimes on Friday are 11:50 a.m., 5:30 p.m. and 8:25 p.m. Saturday shows are 2:35 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 8:25 p.m.