Asian Drama

N/A

"Tora-san, Welcome Back" is the fiftieth film in the "Tora-san" series. Its release is also set to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the series. Kiyoshi Atsumi, who played the eponymous character, will appear via scenes intercut with previous films.

'Subete wa Kimi ni Aeta Kara' follows various different people and couples in 6 loosely connected stories. All of the stories are set at Tokyo Station and take place just before Christmas. The different characters range from a company president who distrusts human beings, to a train driver who just received the shocking diagnosis that he has only half a year left to live. # "Eve no Koibito" ('Christmas Eve Lover') - A company president (Tamaki) meets a woman (Takanashi), who just lost a beloved person, in a restaurant at Tokyo Station. He thinks that all women only like his money and enjoys being alone. She originally moved to Tokyo to become an actress, but now she is planning to go back to her hometown right after her short play at an orphanage. # "Enkyori Renai" ('Long Distance Relationship') - A love-dovey couple that is going through a long distance relationship. She (Kimura) is an aspiring fashion designer in Tokyo and he (Higashide) is a construction worker in Sendai. Will their hectic schedules allow them to at least meet each other on Christmas? # "Christmas Present" - Ichikawa plays a woman who works in an orphanage. That day she is waiting for the new mother of the 7-year-old Akane to come and pick her up. # "Nibun no Ichi Seijin Shiki" ('A Half Coming-Of-Age Ceremony') - A train driver (Tokito) who cannot bring himself to tell his son that he only has half a year left to live. The train driver's wife is played by Otsuka. # "Christmas no Yuuki" ('Christmas Courage') - A part-timer (Honda) at a cake shop has a crush on her senior at work, but she lacks the courage to approach him. # "Okurete Kita Present" ('Belated Present') - The owner of the cake shop at Tokyo Station (Baisho) gets reminded of a promise that she made with a certain someone (Kobayashi) 49 years ago.

Ichi has given up his cane sword and his former life as a traveler in order to settle down with his loving wife Tane in his home village. However, his plan to live the quiet life is interrupted when he learns that the Tendo clan has taken over the village and is constantly harassing locals. Soon, a group of farmers come to Ichi and beg him to help his own village like he’s helped countless other villages in travels.

Leo, a young Japanese college student, travels to Hawaii and eventually falls in love with Maray, an older Japanese-Caucasion woman.

An honest, low-ranking samurai, Munezo Katagiri finds himself buffeted by the confusion of old and new in mid-19th century Japan. Facing outside pressure, the Shogunate is trying to open Japan to the West and some carefully selected Western ways, while maintaining its fragile political base. Munezo, and his colleague Samon Shimada try to maintain their footing, paying heed to the demanding moral code of the samurai while also learning new military strategies, particularly the mastery of Western artillery. But Munezo also has a personal complication. He is secretly in love--so secretly, he may not even admit it to himself--with his family's maid, the sweet and beautiful country girl, Kie. His passion leads him to rescue Kie from a loveless marriage after she leaves his household; the samurai even shocks propriety by carrying away the low-caste young woman on his back. Just as Munezo starts to get his domestic situation in something to resembling order, Munezo hears devastating news. A comrade, Yaichiro Hazama, has been caught up in a plot in Edo. Their clan has sent the rebellious samurai home in the humiliating transport of a "prisoner's basket." Munezo comes under suspicion because he and Yaichiro, the clan's best swordsmen, shared a famed instructor, but Munezo refuses to cooperate with the chief retainer's witch hunt. Tension finally leads Munezo to confess his growing affection to Kie, a development that the young woman begins to hope will lead to the abandonment of caste structures. But before Munezo can realize his romantic destiny, Yaichiro escapes. Munezo is ordered to kill him, and the loyal, honorable samurai is faced with one final challenge to his principles.

I first saw this film at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1981 and have often looked for it since (without any luck). Of the 50 films I saw in those 16 days (including masterpieces by Angelopoulos, and Syberberg's Hitler, A Film From Germany), Yamada's simple story turned out to be my favorite. When it recently turned up in a 5-disk Yoji Yamada box set, I immediately ordered it. Well, the disk is very poor quality, a murky transfer with the widescreen compositions butchered by a truly wretched pan-and-scan job -- and yet the quality of the film still manages to shine through.

On its surface, there's nothing particularly remarkable about A Distant Cry From Spring. A widow struggles to maintain a small farm in a remote area of Hokkaido, fighting the elements and raising her young son. One brutally stormy night, a stranger appears at the door looking for shelter. Though wary, the widow offers him her hospitality. He leaves, but then returns in the spring and asks for work, desiring only room and board in return. What follows is the depiction of a slowly developing emotional bond set against a beautifully observed portrait of daily life on the farm, an endless round of backbreaking chores which constantly threaten to overwhelm the lonely woman.

There is nothing terribly surprising in the revelations which eventually emerge about the characters, but they are so finely drawn and their emotional lives resonate with such authenticity, that only a cold-blooded viewer could fail to be moved by the film's resolution.

Yamada is a master of emotional nuance and a brilliant observer of the small details of ordinary lives, which he obviously holds in some kind of awe, and in which he finds a kind of magic. He makes you feel for the characters without ever stooping to sentimentality or easy manipulation. His work deserves to be more widely known, and he certainly deserves better treatment from DVD distributors.