Americans love Japan.

Japan has always had a cachet of cool, but it was a type of subcultural cool that appealed only to certain tastes. Now, however, Japan's cultural cool is appealing to a wider base ... It only makes sense that American films would want to appropriate this cool.

Lost in Translation, Kill Bill, and The Last Samurai all feature American protagonists fighting their way, either figuratively or literally, across the landscape of Japan.

... the essence of being alone in a foreign place ...