A lonely American lands an unusual engagement with a Japanese agency in Director Hikari’s comedic drama, Rental Family.

Hikari’s film tells the story of Phillip Vandarploeug, an actor in Tokyo struggling to find purpose. After being hired by a company that hires actors for special gigs that fill a void in people’s lives, he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds and rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the beauty of human connection as he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality.

On November 29, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Hikari discussed the making of the film in a Q&A moderated by Director Nicole Holofcener (You Hurt My Feelings).

During the conversation, she spoke about the challenges of directing with both Japanese and English dialogue.

“We had bilingual dialect coaches constantly shifting. For me, how the Japanese will be said, or how English and Japanese switch, was important because some Japanese can be very difficult to pronounce and vice-versa. So, finding the balance, when to switch, when to keep it… ‘I know you practiced it but let’s switch to Japanese.’ Thankfully both [actors] Brendan Fraser and Akira Emoto were really open, ‘Tell me if I’m doing it wrong, let’s just do it again.’ So, I was able to fix it if it didn’t work, switch it over and teach them to memorize the English and Akira would speak Japanese, so the conversation flows better and then at one point we’d switch it back to what we practiced. We were dealing with that constantly.”

Hikari’s other directorial credits include the feature 37 Seconds; and episodes of Beef and Tokyo Vice. She has been a DGA member since 2021.