I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director In Brooklyn

From a film journalist’s perspective, Kenichi Ugana’s award-winning romcom opens like a horror movie. It’s one of those interviews we all dread. Star Mizuhara Shina (Ui Mihara, who won an Outstanding Performance Award at Fantasia for her work) gives one word answers to every question, and really has nothing to say. it’s just as grim from her perspective. Whatever it was that made her fall in love with acting in the first place has deserted her. She just doesn’t have any passion for it anymore – so, needing to get away, she persuades boyfriend Ren (Katsunari Nakagawa) to accompany her on a trip to New York City.

The problem is, Shina can’t summon up any passion for New York City either, and she spends all her time complaining. Central Park is too big. The Brooklyn Bridge is too long. The Statue of Liberty is too far away from it. The weather is too hot, the a/c is too cold. Tipping is confusing and no-one speaks Japanese. Ren, exhausted by this, asks her what she likes about him. He’s hot, she observes. And he’s cool. And he’s popular. Something clicks and she realises that she could say the same thing about a designer bag. When this leads to something clicking for him too, and he compares her to a designer bag, she is distraught, and the relationship abruptly comes to an end, leaving her alone and far from home.

A long chain of further incidents rooted in Shina’s self-centredness and general lack of clue eventually leads to her lying face down in the street in a small puddle of her own vomit, with no money, no phone, no luggage and no ability to explain her situation to anyone she meets. Fortunately for her, she has been drinking in the same bar as Jack (Estevan Muñoz), a young film studio assistant who is about to direct his first picture and has just lost his leading lady. Without knowing that she’s a professional actor, he cuts her a deal: she can stay on his couch, eat his food and even get a plane ticket home if, in return, she will appear in his film.

What follows is a charming culture clash romcom with the added complication of the two leads being completely unable to understand one another when not using a phone to translate. Though they have plenty of likeable qualities, they’re both somewhat self-obsessed, so this proves to be an asset in that they can both talk at length about themselves without alienating the other. Both actors engage fully with the material, such that it becomes easy to see how they can communicate through speech, more and more easily over time, even without knowing what the words mean.

As she gradually warms to her host, whom she initially regards as exploitative, Shina also warms to the city, beginning to understand its charm once she can see it through his eyes. Ugana presents it here in all its diversity, ethnically and subculturally, with the initially conservative young woman gradually learning that she doesn’t have to be afraid of people who look different, and recognising the friendliness of the communities around her. Meanwhile, playing a ghost in a very low budget film with a tiny crew, few of whom have any professional experience, helps her to fall in love with filmmaking again.

It’s clear from the start where most of this is going but that doesn’t make it any less of a joy to watch. There’s a nice supporting turn from Larry Fessenden as Jack’s boss at Crummy Entertainment, and a surprise celebrity post-credits appearance from someone else well know for his love of New York. Throughout, one gets the feeling that the real cast and crew are enjoying themselves just as much as their fictional counterparts, which makes it easy to enjoy it oneself. A classy film about a trashy film which shows respect for both extremes, I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn is one you won’t want to miss.

Reviewed on: 17 Sep 2025