The Contestant

A Japanese reality TV star is left naked in a room for more than a year tasked with filling out magazine competitions to earn food and clothing to survive. The Contestant will be hitting UK cinemas nationwide from 29th November.

Japanese TV is renown for its game shows where contestants have to do bizarre and crazy things usually with a masochistic tendency that have pushed the boundaries of TV and taste long before the well known reality shows of Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity, which have taken over television schedules.

The Contestant is the story of one such pioneering show that just about takes the biscuit. The leading Japanese TV show at the time was Denpa Shonen and their new show A Life in Prizes, made back in January 1988, was their next hit from revered producer Toshio Tsuchiya with its catch line, “for the first time in human history a man will attempt to live on prize competitions alone.”

The auditions see the ‘lucky contestant’ Nasubi pick out the winning raffle ticket and, with all the endearing mannerisms of a very happy Japanese man on TV, Nasubi joyfully remarks, “I must have used up a lifetime of luck”, to which the producer eerily replies, “you’ve just used it all up.” Producer Toshio Tsuchiya, a self proclaimed devil of TV, who even the editors send up by playing Darth Vader music when he appears on screen, knows Nasubi is in for a rough ride.

He is swiftly whisked away to a secret location (an apartment in Tokyo) and on entering the apartment he is told to strip naked. Somewhat reluctant, he is reassured that barely any of the footage would be seen and duly undresses, tentatively querying, “It’s not right?” Out of the 24 hours of daily footage only several minutes will be used for broadcast, so it wasn’t a complete lie.

And it isn’t right. He’s left in a room naked with only a table, a telephone, a rack of magazines, a pen and a stack of postcards plus a cushion which he can either sit on or use to cover his modesty – for over a year. No clothes, no food he’s soon under no illusion that he has to win prizes to survive. He’s not even sure whether he’s even on TV or at least has no idea that he is being watched by the shows 30 million viewers; whilst his parents’ last words ring in his ears after he left his home town of Fukushima – “Just don’t get naked.”

He soon embraces his nakedness in his apartment and plays up to the camera with such comedic humanistic qualities the audiences and the producers are loving him. Unfortunately for him, in his first 963 applications he wins nothing, so when he wins some dog food he inevitably eats it…the dog biscuits are so good he starts woofing to the camera in joy because they are more appetising than anything else he’s won.

Other firsts include having to cover up his genitalia with something on screen for broadcast censorship. Now synomonous with a p***s in text parlance, an aubergine is used because his name means egg plant.

It’s easy to get carried away with laughing at someone else’s predicament but the off camera interviews show a darker side to the entertainment because of the psychological impact on the individual, and the family and friends, all in the name of entertainment. Manipulating a wannabe comedian and actor who is willing to do anything for fame and success, it’s a twisted TV social experiment that really goes too far. But of course the more extreme suffering the contestant endures the more audiences want to watch and the more the producer wants to push things further.

The Contestant is a fascinating documentary about the early forays into reality TV in Japan that would change the TV landscape. Watching Nasubi’s path to stardom showed what he was prepared to endure and despite all the loving ridicule the turn of events that followed show a surprising story of human strength and courage on a grand scale.

Julian Gaskell @ thelanguageoffilm.com