Realised that my last movie post was way back in 2008. But considering that my last post was back in December, it seems this blog is on suffering from my lack of interest again. It’s just that I’ve been really busy (watching TV and eating) and blogging is really the last thing I want to do. But at the same time, I don’t really want to close this down, so here I am again. It’s going to be tough trying to play catch up, yet again. In any case, I think trying to blog in Japanese is becoming pointless, seeing that I’m no longer actively studying the language, and it will add to the backlog…
So, my come-back movie post is… Hanamizuki ハナミズキ
This movie was released in August last year (2010). The title is from a song of the same title by Hitoto Yo (一青 窈) which was released back in 2004. The tag line is 君と好きな人が 百年続きますように, which has been translated for the movie as May your love bloom a hundred year.
Cast
Aragaki Yui
Ikuta Toma
The movie is directed by Nobuhiro_Doi who also directed Nada Sousou, as well as a few other TV dramas that I like.
The movie takes place in Hokkaido, Tokyo, New York and Nova Scotia, Canada. Aragaki Yui’s character Sae, from a village in Hokkaido, is a senior high school student on her way to take an important examination which will give her a recommendation into Waseda University in Tokyo. The train she is in was stopped because of a collision with a deer. On the same train is Ikuta Toma’s Kohei, a student at a fishery school. Smitten by Sae, Kohei decided to help Sae get to that all-important exam by “borrowing” a neighbour’s pick-up. Only thing is Kohei only has a temporary learner’s permit and he ends up crashing the pick-up and Sae misses the examinations and her chance of getting into Waseda. From this chance encounter, a friendship develops between the two unlikely teens: one, a studious goody-goody student, the other an earthy fisherman-in-training.
I don’t quite get quite get how Kohei came to be helping Sae and I felt that perhaps some kind of back story might have made an impact. Or if it were to be a chance meeting, then it should be really chance. Rather than to have Kohei semi-stalk Sae on the train before offering to help her get to her destination.
With Kohei’s encouragement, Sae decides to sit for the entrance exams on her own merits as it was her dream to go to university in Tokyo. Kohei takes on a part-time job in town to take the train home with her after her cram school class. Tension builds as Sae feels the pressure of the exams coming while for Kohei has conflicted feelings about Sae passing the exams. Somehow, you feel that this relationship is doomed from the start as Sae wants to leave the small town, whereas Kohei seems happy to stay as a fisherman, as his father and grandfather before him were.
The inevitable happens – Sae passes her entrance exams and leaves for Waseda University in Tokyo. Will their relationship survive the distance? It almost didn’t survive the first Christmas. Kohei had travelled all the way south to spend Christmas with Sae, but was filled with jealousy when he saw Sae with a senpei (Junichi, an aspiring photojournalist who also introduced Sae to part-time teaching). However, they managed to affirm their affections for each other, and Kohei gave Sae a hand-made wooden boat for Christmas before returning to Hokkaido.
Things weren’t looking so good for Kohei. His father had to sell off their fishing boat and had advised Kohei to go follow his own dreams. Kohei thinks of joining Sae in Tokyo, but Sae hesitating, didn’t give a definite answer. She was having her own problems, unable to secure a job despite her graduation looming. But before long, tragedy strikes. On their final fishing trip, Kohei’s father collapses from a heart attack and dies, leaving Kohei to carry the family debts. Over the phone, Kohei tells Sae that he shouldn’t have said that he was leaving behind fishing, the ocean. And with that, the unlikely couple is no longer.
This thing about Christmas Eve in Japan, it’s actually like Valentine’s Day for us. Couples spend it together, it’s a big thing. So, for Kohei to travel all that way to be with Sae, you can imagine how he feels when he saw Sae with another guy. He probably feels inferior, as he’s like the country bumpkin whereas the other guy is another uni undergrad. As for the part about Sae being unable to secure a job in her final of study, it might seem crazy to most people. I mean the girl is still in school and you expect her to already have job offers? But that’s how it works in Japan. When I was there, most of my final year students were busy in their final year going to job interviews. It’s like that is actually their interview-going year. They hardly attend class. And if you don’t secure a job before graduation, it’s like you are in real trouble.
Fast forward a couple of years. Sae has graduated and is working in New York. She returns for her best friend’s wedding. She meets Kohei at the wedding, but he is already married to someone else. A local girl who has always had a crush on him. You can’t blame the missus for being jealous when she sees the way Kohei and Sae were talking. There was real chemistry there. Anyway, Kohei meets Sae again by chance at the Light House where they had shared their first kiss. It was where Sae had shared about her birthplace – somewhere in Nova Scotia in Canada. Sae has the boat that Kohei had made for her many years ago. She’s bringing it to New York as she doesn’t thing she will return to Japan. She will be getting married – to Junichi senpei. As Kohei sends Sae home, you can feel that they still have feelings for each other. But it’s not meant to be.
Kohei returns to a hysterical wife and you think she is just being a raving jealous lunatic, but it is revealed that while Kohei was out reminiscing the past with his first love, the Fishing Cooperative has decided not to extend his loan, meaning he is now a bankrupt. He returns after completing the bankruptcy forms to an empty home – his wife has decided to divorce him. Meanwhile, Junichi senpei was killed on assignment. Which means the two are free to re-unite.
Which they almost, in Canada. After Junichi’s death, Sae had some kind of crisis of identity and decides to travel to Canada, where she was born. When she was there, she chances upon a boat in a shop. It was the same boat that Kohei had made for her (she had left it in Kohei’s pickup truck that night). She runs to the pier, but is too late. Kohei’s tuna fishing trawler had already left. Are they never fated to be together?
Sae returns to Hokkaido, to her home. She is teaching children English, I think. She is reading them the Three Little Pigs, so I think she’s become like an English teacher. As she walks out, Kohei is in her yard, near to that Dogwood (Mizuki of the title) tree that her father had planted before dying of cancer. He holds that boat he had given her in his hand. Turning the flag with the “Kanbatte Sae” sign, there is a “Thank You” note, written by Sae, in Canada (inferred). So this is their love that will blossom a hundred years.
Overall, I like the show, probably because I like the 2 actors as well as the director. While watching, I can’t help but feel that it reminds me of The Notebook. There are some places where I felt that there was some glossing over, but I think that it was inevitable or it would have stretched the movie unnecessarily long. Also, initially, I felt that I would have preferred Kohei not to have married that girl who had a crush on him, but in the end, I think it adds up nicely. It would have been unrealistic for him to be single.
The music played a big part in creating the mood. Kudos to 一青 窈 for both songs. She’s now on my watch list.
