Hey and welcome! So nice to have you here on Linguaholic.com!
Yes, studying Japanese is really hard and takes a looooong time. Same as with Chinese. But it's sooo much fun, isn't it?
I just studied Japanese at university for two semesters and also did not get anywhere. but I was able to get Chinese to a pretty decent level. But that took me many many years.
Kanji are so beautiful. And luckily they are borrowed from Chinese, so I can at least understand the general meaning of some Japanese sentences :=)
With films, studying french is maybe easier, yes. However, as far as Japanese goes, there are many good learning resources out there. You will find lots of great resources in the Linguaholic Blog.
Best,
Lingua