AFVP-1001 (VHS), BMG
3000 yen
released 1996.02.28
Color, 30 minutes, HiFi, Stereo
[information provided by Albert Tanone]
This video opens with the title (in English): Kyoko Hikami in Dallas. (For some reason, it feels weird to read Japanese name written in Western order with personal name first..)
We see a shot of Dallas (yes, if you read the credits at the end, you find out they really were filming in Dallas) then a hotel room. We see a two feet getting off the bed and walking toward the drapes and opening it. Then the person walks into the shower (her face is still not shown yet!).
Of course, at this point, the extremely, and I mean absolutely brilliant video producer focuses his camera on the showerhead instead of something else. I mean, I don't want him focusing the camera on Kyoko-san's body but still, be a little artistic/creative and just show the bathroom door as we hear the shower turned on or something.
Someone then picks up a music sheet and the ring that was on top of it fell onto the floor. That someone leaves the hotel room.
A fancy car drives up to Dallas Sound Studio and we see Kyoko-san (finally!!) wearing a nice, white, one piece, long-dress (down to her feet) coming out of the car and walking into the studio. We see man-secretary as she walks past him then she steps into the recording area. Two Americans greet her.
She says, "Hi, my name is Kyoko." They say some other stuff like "We will start there *point*," etc. (still in English) then the main recording engineer says "nomundai" and she laughs as she repeats the word.
Kyoko steps into the recording area and starts singing a song but got stopped twice because she was "going flat." The main engineer suggests they stop for the day because she sounds tired. Kyoko looks disappointed and quickly leaves the studio.
Kyoko is in a park (or the hotel garden), writing a postcard/letter? to her obaachan and then realizes she's missing her ring.
Meanwhile, a vacuum cleaner is heard in the background and we see the ring on the floor. A person picks it up and puts it in a nice box and puts a bouquet next to the box.
Kyoko looks for her ring, worried. (I think she got her ring from her grandma or something.) At this point, a song title appeares and it plays in the background as we see Kyoko looking worried and searching for her ring. Kyoko even walks into the hotel bar and has glass of something blue in front of her but she doesn't drink it.
She walks back into her hotel room and finds her ring. With it was a note (I couldn't understand it). She reads the note then smiles, believing she'll do better the next day.
The next day, she's in the studio again and then another song title appears and she starts singing.
And here, the brilliant director now focused the camera on Kyoko's ring. There were so many close-ups of this ring that I swear I can spot that ring if I ever see it again.
Then the video ends with her in various places in Dallas. Credits are in English.
Furthermore, there were also many places where we could have seen her face but they didn't show it for some reason. It drove me nuts waiting for them to finally show her face at the beginning of the tape.
Also, in many parts, she looks concerned (because of the lost ring) that it was somewhat depressing to see her sulk.
It bored me because for some 20 minutes, you watch Kyoko-san walks around in various scenery with a music box playing in the background as the soundtrack. The best part of this video is to see her smile (cute!!) and singing the last song. She was nervous looking the first time she records a song in the middle of the video but in the last one, she looked very hapy and confident.
To sum it up:
Not really worth it unless you're a die-hard Kyoko fan and have money to spend (I don't have money to spend.) And now that I've seen it, would I have bought it? No. But as a gift, I thought it was pretty good. ^_^