That the delightful “Tokyo Pop” is set to play this week at the 4 Star Theatre is something of a small miracle.

The 1988 film directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui stars Carrie Hamilton,Carol Burnett’sdaughter, as a young woman who goes to Tokyo to seek fame as a pop star. She joins a band and has a romance with the lead singer (Diamond Yukai, then known as Yutaka Tadokoro) as they pursue the big time.

The film came out in April 1988, charmed critics, did very little at the box office and quickly disappeared. The film’s distributor, International Spectrafilm, released it on VHS and Laserdisc, then went out of business. It’s never been on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming, and for years, it was thought that there were no surviving 35mm prints.

Even Kuzui, who would later direct the 1992“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”movie and executive produce the subsequent TV series, didn’t know of one.

Then the Japan Society in New York, which was programming a series on films shot in Tokyo, found a pristine print of “Tokyo Pop” at the Academy Film Archive. A screening in 2019 was the first since the original release.

In the audience at that event four years ago was Sandra Schulberg, president ofIndieCollect, a film preservation organization. Ecstatic about the film, she was determined to restore it — a complicated and expensive task, considering many of the original elements were missing. But Burnett andDolly Parton, Kuzui’s co-producer on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” stepped in to help fund the project.

The restoration stands as a celebration of Hamilton,who died of cancer in 2002at age 38 and is the subject of a 2013 memoir by Burnett, “Carrie and Me.”

Kuzui, 78, who splits her time between Japan and the United States with her producing partner and husband, Kaz Kuzui, spoke to The Chronicle via video chat from a hotel in Los Angeles.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: “Tokyo Pop” is a time capsule of ’80s styles, but it also still seems fresh. Why do you think it holds up?

A:Because Japanese culture has become so much part of the zeitgeist in both the United States and in Europe. When we made the film 35 years ago, this was really strange, exotic stuff. Nobody ate ramen. Only really, really odd and unusual people watched anime or did cosplay or anything like that. And now all that is part of Western culture.

Q: What was it like shooting in Tokyo? I hear you pretty much just showed up and shot on the streets.

A:We just shot what was there and just went with the flow.

There was one time we were shooting in Shinjuku with a lot of neon and the yakuza (Japanese mafia) came and said, “You know, we didn’t tell you you could shoot here.” Suddenly I felt all the Japanese crew step back and leave me there. And I went, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Could we just stay here another 10 minutes?” They didn’t know how to handle that because they’d never seen a woman directing a movie, and no one had ever talked to them that way. So they agreed.

Q: How did you come to cast Carrie Hamilton?

A:Let me go back to when I was 11 or 12. My parents brought me to see my first live theater, which was an off-Broadway play called “Once Upon a Mattress” starring Carol Burnett. It washerfirst play. I still remember to this day when it was over, just sitting there and going, “I don’t know what this is. I just know it’s what I want to be part of when I’m an adult. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.” I wanted to be part of creating. So growing up, Carol was my idol.

When we were casting the movie, the financing of the film was contingent on casting somebody that would make a difference on the video box, somebody that people would recognize in a blockbuster. But at that time, there was nobody in that age range who made any difference. So (the financiers) said, “Could you find a relative of somebody famous?”

The next day, the casting director gave me this picture. I remember looking at it and going, “Just because it’s Eric Roberts’ sister, what makes you think she can act?” It was Julia Roberts. I said, “I don’t think so.” I didn’t think she looked right for the part.

So I brought in a picture of Carol and her daughter from People magazine from years earlier and said (the character) should look like (Carrie). And the casting director said, “She’s in ‘Fame.’ She’s an actress.” I went, “Really?” So I took my rent money because we didn’t have any money then, bought a ticket and flew to L.A. to meet Carrie. Five minutes into our meeting, she said to me, “When do I leave for Tokyo?”

我们两个只是连接,我们继续have that connection through the whole movie. She was not only the star of the film, but she was my great collaborator because the crew was Japanese, everything was Japanese except her and me. Every day the two of us would just talk about our experiences and things like that.

When we restored the film, I must have had to watch it 20 or 30 times. There wasn’t a time I watched it that I didn’t cry, you know, because I wished I could be sharing it with her.

Q: What has been Carol Burnett’s reaction to the restoration?

A:I was sitting right near her at the screening in Los Angeles (earlier this month), and I could see how emotional it was for her. Her sister and one of her daughters were there. I could see how emotional everybody was. Afterward, she just put her arms around me and hugged me and kissed me. She didn’t have to say anything.

(Diamond Yukai) came to the screening. He’s still very well known in Japan. He actually paid his own way from Tokyo to Los Angeles, because he wanted to sing for Carol. At the end of the screening, he got up and he sang for her. That was quite a moment.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com