I’ve been to the hospital via ambulance a few times in Japan because of my wonky heart, and I like to have a little chit-chat with the paramedic once he or she has called around and found an open hospital and we are on our way (apparently sometimes there aren’t any takers, and so people can die waiting for the emergency worker to find an open room). So anyway, one time, there I was, concerned I might be dying or whatever in the back of an ambulance, and we are zipping along with the siren screaming away above, and I asked the guy, “Why did you become a paramedic? It seems like it would be a really stressful job with lots of pressure!”
The dude, I think he was probably in his mid-twenties, sort of looked down and away when I asked. He replied, “Yes, I thought so, too. I used to see the TV shows and movies about emergency workers and ambulance drivers and I thought it would be an exciting job and I wanted to be a part of that. But actually it’s pretty boring usually.”
“Why is that?” I asked (maybe because it was still a little exciting for me).
“Well, usually, when we are responding to calls,” he said. “It’s just like a drunk guy on the street, you know? He needs to be taken in, and taken care of a bit. Most nights it’s not exciting at all.”
I wonder if my paramedic had been watching a TV show like Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room when he decided on his career path—and if so, by contrast with the real thing, yeah, of course he was going to think his job was a major snooze! Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room was a TV show (basically a mini-series) from Tokyo Broadcasting Station (TBS), and it ran for eleven episodes. The program must have been popular, though, as it recently garnered a movie version released on April 28, 2023, as Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room (Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room the Movie in Japan). This strategy of starting with a TV show and graduating to a movie, or moving back and forth through different kinds of formats like movies, specials, and mini-series, seems to be a common strategy in Japan, as another TV program here just a few weeks ago got its own movie (specifically, Nemesis with Suzu Hirose—one of my former students apparently had a bit part in the TV show). I also reviewed one of these TV show/movie cross promotion films a few years ago in the form of Unfair: The End (2015). In the case of the movie Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room, I saw it at the height of Golden Week (a week of holidays enjoyed by many in Japan—I had no days off), and the theater was fairly packed with enthusiastic fans.
The idea of the initial mini-series was that Tokyo commissions a special kind of super ambulance, so to speak—the titular mobile emergency room, fitted out so that doctors and staff can ride in the back and carry out complex surgical operations on the go (instead of the limited treatments available in a conventional ambulance). The MER is a bulky, armored vehicle that looks like a medical version of a military transport or a money truck. While I haven’t seen the TV drama version of the program, the movie provided a number of flashbacks to dramatic and character moments from key episodes, and the concept is clear enough. A team of emergency specialists are sent out on dangerous rescue missions around Tokyo and monitored by a home base—the MER is decked out with cameras inside so the head staff can watch all the bloody heroics. Thus, as the doctors and nurses scramble to save lives, we get dramatic commentary on the action happening on the ground. A big deal is made out of making sure the medical team can get through their missions with zero deaths (amongst the staff, amongst the patients), which they have apparently been able to do with regularity on the show (with one notable exception).
The story this time starts with a tense and insane sequence at the airport where a passenger airliner is on fire and damaged, with injured passengers and attendants working their way to the runway and escaping. Muscular, ever-positive Kota Kitami (Ryohei Suzuki, My Love Story!! [2015]), the chief doctor of the MER, comes running, soon followed by his crew, and the situation escalates to absolutely absurd levels when a flight attendant goes critical and the emergency staff have to operate while driving away through rubble and debris before the airplane can explode. After surviving (only just), Kitami returns home, having missed a promised dinner with his pregnant wife, Dr. Chiaki Takanawa (Riisa Naka, Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City [2011]). Chiaki is so upset at him for his repeated broken promises (apparently completely unconcerned that he almost died since it happens so often), she moves out on the spot to spend some time away in Yokohama. We soon hear rumblings of a second MER team being assembled in, you guessed it, the lovely city of… Yokohama. Just then, an arsonist sets fire to Yokohawa Landmark Tower, along with planting makeshift bombs all over with general malice and villainous glee. Both MER teams converge on the scene with their unique operation styles clashing as they try to save lives. Soon, it is discovered that Takanawa is trapped in the tower, and as the fire spreads, explosions ring forth, and the dangerous situation cascades into catastrophe. Thus the MER team and their newly founded counterpart must face their most desperate test yet.
Tokyo MER feels in every way like a bigger-budget episode of the TV show, best enjoyed by fans familiar with the characters and their interactions. While I could catch up and roughly follow the relationships and fill in the gaps with the help of the many flashbacks, I definitely didn’t get the intended dramatic impact of certain scenes, nor did I fully appreciate the character history when, say, the stoic Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare guy Nao Otowa (Kenta Kaku, Psychic Kusuo [2017]) must deal with his romantic feelings toward the new chief doctor of the Yokohama MER, or when a beloved team member who died on the job is fondly remembered and thus influences critical plot decisions late in the film. I don’t think watching all eleven episodes of the mini-series is required to enjoy this movie, as I still found myself grinning along with the silliness, but obviously if you can get the whole show under your belt, that is the preferred homework before viewing this film.
Characters and acting, too, feel like an overblown TV show, and sometimes I felt like some actors (particularly Ayami Nakajo as the second doctor) felt unpolished and a little awkward, while others like Shinya Kote (from the recent robot movie Tang [2022]) as the anesthetist just lacked much to do. Protagonist Kitami has a lot more on-screen duty as he juggles domestic troubles with his muscular-heroic antics in frantic and truly bonkers emergency situations, and actor Ryohei Suzuki pounds through with his massive cheesy grin and endless swirl of enthusiasm. Riisa Naka’s pregnant Dr. Takanawa is maybe a bit less effective, going through many predictable character moments, scolding Kitami right after he almost died, and generally presenting herself in… well, not the best light. (1) Each member of the cast possesses their deliberately lovable predilections and qualities, built to bounce against and rub off the other cast, and it functions like a fairly standard cheesy drama ensemble—something like a NCIS with a tank-ambulance.
Well, except for Satoshi Tokushige as Takafumi Ryogoku, this scheming cabinet minister behind the formation of the Yokohama MER. Tokushige seems to have wandered in off of a kid’s adventure film, and mugs for the camera with admirable facial muscle control, nearly twisting his face right off as he sneers and ogles and gloats about his MER’s superiority and undermining the efforts of the Tokyo MER team. His performance clashes with the movie as a whole, and I can’t say I LIKED it, but it’s surely memorable.
Special effects are noticeably poor at times, with some of the least-convincing rubbery-flesh surgery scenes I have ever witnessed (many patients get cut open, poked with needles, and otherwise drilled and filled with holes, all with cheap-looking plasticky skin and unrealistic blood—this is a G movie in Japan, folks!). The fire and explosion effects, when accomplished via CGI, can also look fake, but some sequences appear convincing enough, and we get practical effects of broken debris and busted-up rooms. I think the audience just needs to go in with an expectation for the budget constraints, and a willing viewer who can take the artificial effects as a stylistic choice for the pulpy storytelling will enjoy the movie more.
The soundtrack has a similar issue, being at best exciting in a generic manner. Music includes many hard-driving rock-and-electronic pieces to jolt the effects-laden scenes to an elevated tension, and while the themes never wormed their way into my head, they serve their purpose—but arguably go too far in trying to strain out every last drop of audience tension.
As far as movies go, Tokyo MER at least qualifies under length, even though it feels like a TV special. The effects aren’t so special, but they add a chintzy quality to numerous joyfully dorky action set pieces, and the fully-game actors bring together camaraderie and spunk, if not always subtlety to their roles. While predictable in its major beats, the crisis-of-the-week format still provides a base level of pleasant undemanding action cinema for the fans. This isn’t entertainment that will change your life, but it may provide a brief adrenaline ride for those willing to enjoy it for what it is.
(1) (Spoilers) Takanawa is a real piece of work. In addition to basically breaking up with the hero because he is too busy saving peoples’ lives, when Kitami tries to save Takanawa in the middle of a burning room with seemingly no escape, she gives him a knife and tells him to cut the baby out of her belly on the spot and so save the child and let her die—despite the fact he can carry her easily enough, and despite the fact she can still walk. We get this idiotic scene where Kitami agonizes over whether to cut her open while the fire rages on—but it just is so bat-guano bonkers that the whole situation is hard to take seriously.