Shô Miyake	...	(Director)
Yasushi Satô, Shô Miyake	...	(Writer)
Tasuku Emoto	...	Me
Shizuka Ishibashi	...	Sachiko
Shôta Sometani	...	Shizuo
Makiko Watanabe	...	Naoko
Tomomitsu Adachi	...	Moriguchi
Ai Yamamoto	...	Mizuki
Takaya Shibata	...	Hasegawa
Masato Hagiwara	...	Shimada
Hi'Spec	...	Composer
Hidetoshi Shinomiya	...	Cinematographer
Shô Miyake	...	Editor

Comments: First thing I gotta do is rewatch this one more time so I can add it to my All Timers list (3 drink minimum)

Hokey, but what I feel after this film is over, is grateful. Grateful that it exists and succeeds at what it set out to do

Movies like this are almost impossible to pull off. Dim, sweaty, and slow paced; not much happens; very little scripted dialog; we're supposed to enjoy spending time with a few characters who aren't remarkable at anything. The ending, while not ambiguous, is certainly non-definitive. And the film isn't really about anything

To a small degree it's about a love triangle, except there isn't much love, and there is absolutely no drama. In fact, if anything, the characters all excel at being as undramatic as possible

A film whose characters spend most of their time drinking alcohol but there is never a moment where any one of them appears to say or do anything drunkenly. No bad drunk-acting. Heroic!

You can't pull something like this off without good actors and a director who loves and trusts them. Shôta Sometani is this film. I can't speak much to Tasuku Emoto's credentials, but even if you don't like or agree with his character you gotta admit he executes it perfectly, and truly. Slobber (and more later) all over Shizuka Ishibashi for the homer she hit with Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue. Makiko Watanabe, automatic seal of approval for this kind of thing

Shizuka Ishibashi. jesus christ. She ends this film, or more accurately her face ends the film, by going through 17 different emotions, ending on none of them. Nothing. I'm usually indifferent to endings. Holds true here. There's a reason for the scene as an ending, but for me it's just another one of her scenes and it just happens to end the film. There's a scene of her in a cafe with her head sideways on the table reading a book. We watch her eyes go up and down (it's Japanese). We see her mind slowly leave the page but her eyes continue up and down. jesus christ. She sits up, thinks for a moment, looks at her phone. Cut

The whole film is scenes like that. They play ping pong, they shoot pool, they dance in a nightclub. Nothing. One scene is Shôta Sometani getting up and changing his shirt. Shôta and Makiko (his mom) having a beer together discussing what to do if she becomes senile. "You want me to kill you"? Yes. "No problem". Makiko's laughing about it. Shôta's already moved on. Fuck

About my struggle with subtitles for this movie. I had just watched Love Someone, a film similar in theme and style that suffered greatly with only machine-translated subtitles. It reminded me of this so I checked to see if any new subs were available, and lo and behold

Long story short this 3rd round of subs aren't much different than Round 2. Some things are a little better, some are worse. I believe these Round 3 subs are about as proper (and likely ripped from the actual Blu-ray) as we're going to get. They have off screen dialog ("thought" dialog) in italics

A couple of my go-to lines as examples of differences

When Tasuku first meets Shizuka and needs to light his cigarette:

1st) Is there a lighter? (Does a lighter exist?) (machine)
2nd) Got a light? You smoke, right? (ESL)
3rd) Got a light? Do you smoke? (proper)

Kind of a toss up between 2 & 3, but I think since Tasuku and Shizuka work together Tasuku may have some notion that she smokes so I think #2 is probably more accurate. I missed that the first time and now think my characterization of batch #2 as "ESL Bad" was harsh and unfair

When Tasuku and Shizuka are about to do the nasty:

1st) "Just remembered". Huh? "Do you have a condom"? (machine)
2nd) "Oh hey". Huh? "You got a rubber"?(ESL)
3rd) "Oh hey" "You got rubber"? (proper)

Subtle stuff, but with a film like this where rhythm is everything, subtle matters. #2 is winning me back over. That a machine would use "condom" is understandable, but I believe the more colloquial "rubber" is more representative

Lots of little things are left out of Round 3. An "a", a "huh". When Shiota arrives late to meet Shizuka for a walk:

1)"Did you wait a long time"
2)"Did you wait long"
3)"Did you wait"

In the scene where Shizuka and Mizuki are discussing fucking on a bunk bed while they wait for takeout, the clerk's calling out the other orders gets subbed in #2, but not #3.

Here's a reverse banger:

The one time they actually show the texts between Tasuku and Shizuka, in #3 it labels them with "Me" and "Sachiko" (Shizuka). I didn't think of it as anything more than helpful. Then, at the end credit roll I noticed:

EMOTO Tasuku as "Me"

It hadn't registered with me, even after three viewings, that Tasuku's character is never named, or called by his name, in the film. Not once

I don't know if "Me" is a(n) (un)common Japanese name or not. I don't know if it's supposed to be some meta-something or other. Don't really care but it's kinda cool

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This is so five stars. It qualifies for my high praise tagline:

It doesn't aim very high and hits its target with a sledgehammer

If Shôta Sometani were a film he'd be this film. It's liquid. It wasn't made. It was embraced into existence. There is nothing, and no one, representing anything. Just "spend a few (film) weeks with these people ... you're done"

Tasuku Emoto and Shôta go head to head sleepy-eye. Shizuka Ishibashi is a revelation. So natural. She can be filmed walking, and make it engrossing, and rhythmical. When you watch this movie listen to the sound of her feet as she's walking quickly down that street

Ishibashi's face ends this movie and gives nothing. But it satiates. Her nothing is everything

All four leads are wonderful. Makiko Watanabe needs only three minutes screen time to star in a film

The sound design and soundtrack. This is an A+ A/V package

I know I missed a big part, though. The English subtitles in no way convey the rhythm or wit of the dialog. They are at odds with its beat. I'll never give up hope for a re-watch with proper subs. They aren't machine translated bad, just ESL translated bad



Summary: The protagonist is a boozing loser. He can set a fresh course and set things right, but chooses not to. He has a part-time job, but does not try or try hard enough. He is either absent or careless. Instead he lives with a room-mate who subsists on government assistance and goes drinking with him when he can be on time, keep his promise and go on a date with his colleague who for some reason fancies him. It is a matter of his future.