Dawn of a New Day (陽はまた昇る)

2002's Dawn of a New Day (陽はまた昇る) follows Kagaya (Toshiyuki Nishida), an R&D boss at JVC. He is "promoted" to be the head of the video division, a job that no one wants in a division undergoing severe budget cuts. Feeling a sudden surge of inspiration, Kagaya decides to develop a video player for the home, as no such product existed at the time. Part-way through the development of their "nipper" system that would become known as VHS, Sony unveiled Betamax. Months later, Kagaya finishes the VHS player, and JVC announces their technologically superior product. Unfortunately many of the big companies have already aligned themselves with Sony and the Betamax. Furthermore, the Japanese government is urging the various companies to decide on one standard format for video in order to benefit consumers. Just when things seem hopeless, Kagaya and his assistant Okubo (Ken Watanabe) make a trip to Osaka, uninvited, to personally pitch the VHS to the man in charge of the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., (or as we know it in the US, Panasonic) the largest manufacturer of home electronics in Japan at that time. The presentation was a resounding success and brought Matsushita to JVC's side in supporting VHS.

My only complaint with the movie was with the characterization of Kagaya. It seemed that the writers wanted to show a timid, unambitious man who dug deep in the face of adversity and found a potential for greatness. Unfortunately, as I saw it, there was never a good job done in showing his timidity. In fact, it is only really alluded to once when his wife essentially says "He was a timid man." This one issue, however, did not bring down the movie as a whole, which was nominated for four Japanese Academy Awards.