It couldn't happen here — that was my first takeaway from the massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment prompted by the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy "The Interview." In the film, the two heroes journey to North Korea ostensibly to interview its real-life leader, Kim Jong Un, but in fact, they are there to assassinate him at the behest of the CIA.

Not that similarly silly comedies set in funny (to the filmmakers) foreign countries never get made in Japan. Back in 1993, a comedy by Yojiro Takita, of "Okuribito (Departures)" fame, was released, "Bokura wa Minna Ikiteiru" ("We Are Not Alone," aka "Made in Japan"), about four salarymen in an impoverished Southeast Asian nation (actually, Thailand) run by a corrupt colonel. Competing cravenly for the leader's favor to win a big construction contract, our four heroes find themselves caught in a violent coup and have to run for their lives. Farce ensues.

At the time, military regimes were not uncommon in that part of the world, and Japanese companies were also not known for letting a little oppression and murder by said regimes get in the way of business. Though hardly a great film, "We Are Not Alone" had a satirical bite. But Takita and scriptwriter Nobuyuki Isshiki did not — unlike Rogen and "The Interview" co-director Evan Goldberg — model and name their colonel after an actual, living leader.