Adapted from a true story. A greengrocer and his wife befriend and aid Chinese college students over a period of years. Neglect of their business results in a financial crisis which is resolved with the aid of the grateful students. Later, the couple are guests of the ex-students who are now in Beijing. Has humor and warmth. To achieve a natural setting, The director often has several people talking at the same time and often on different subjects. When Chinese is spoken, there are vertical titles, accompanying the English subtitles.
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thomas-korn5 March 2021Altman was known for having "layered" dialogue in most his movies (everyone talking over each other) Ôbayashi had to use this - and the mostly wide shots otherwise, the story would get lost. This is a highly under rated and under appreciated movie. The whole family, not just the father were the main characters. If the movie focused on any one character over any other, the movie would be confusing.
Please watch this movie and understand every aspect of it helps lend focus exactly where it was needed. -
capica9 May 2004As stated, the movie is warm and good, but too slow! 135 minutes could have been 90 or even less. Worse yet, it was predictable from the middle onwards, people started walking out during the movie. As mentioned before, multiple conversations at the same time seemed like there's no sense in listening (I don't speak Japanese, but I like the sound of foreign languages), but just concentrating on the subtitles.
Apart from that, it was a wonderful presentation of life somewhere in the suburbs of a Japanese town, with small lives of ordinary people, their joys and sorrows. There was a little propaganda of Japan-China relationship, but as a neutral bystander, I don't find anything bad about it. There was a little humour at the end **SPOILER** when the actor talks about the process of filming, like it was a documentary about that film, or backstage scenes.