Kiiroi Namida

Yellow Tears

Cast:
Sho Sakurai as Ryuzo Mukai
Masaki Aiba as Shoichi Inoue
Kazunari Ninomiya as Eisuke Muraoka
Satoshi Ono as Kei Shimokawa
Jun Matsumoto as Yuji Katsumada

Genre: Life, Drama, Dreams, JMovie

Summary: Four young men, with not so conventional chosen paths in life, are brought together by circumstances and they develop a very strong friendship. Life makes them meet again, sooner then they had planed.
They live together, and are total struggling artists, to the point they have to pawn the very tools of their trade (pen, guitar, etc...) to escape starvation. After a while, they manage to get a hold of a substantial amount of money, by selling one of Kei's paintings and by Eisuke working as a mangaka's assistant. They squander away a bit of the money, but Eisuke convinces everyone to use the rest of the money to 'restart' again. He convinces them that they should dedicate the time, without worrying about how to get their next meal, to concentrate on their dreams and to try to succeed. So they spend an entire summer together in a tiny apartment, each dedicating the time to their own specific dreams.

Review: This is a very, very good movie. It totally exceeded my expectations. Since the main cast of this movie consisted of Arashi{Japanese pop idol group}, I was expecting a movie dedicated mainly to fan service, with shirtless anorexic bishie guys, funny little jokes and maybe a guy forced to dress in a girls dress or two. This movie totally threw my expectations miles into the ocean!

It is set in post atomic bomb Japan, in Tokyo, in 1963, and the essence of the time is perfectly captured in this movie. How the culture of Japan was changed by the allied occupation, and how a country with very simplistic and traditional values were adapting to the changes. There are little clips scattered through out which gives you a really good idea of the time period, and of what is happening then.

What I like about this movie is the fact that it captures the essence of the Japan that I have always been in love with. Quaint, quiet, minimalistic and a deep resounding silence which echoes with a kind of sadness. (Kind of like Japan in Mimi wo Sumaseba, but not quite). The laundry hanging off the balcony and across a rope strung in across the room, baths in bath houses, tiny cramped rooms in which all aspects of life are carried out from sleeping to working to cooking. This movie has it all in perfection. No, it's all so perfectly imperfect, which is what makes it amazing.

Spoilers

The movie starts with Eisuke Muraoka the more-or-less main character of the movie asking his friends to pretend to be doctors so he can convince his mother to leave her home town and go to a hospital in Tokyo to get treatment for her illness. The charade somehow works, and Eisuke is extremely grateful. They part ways, saying that all of them, will meet once they have made it in there chosen careers.

They meet sooner then they thought, and spend a summer trying to succeed with there dreams. To save money and to make the money they have last till summer is over, they try to cook there own meals and came up with the most amusing results, like actually burning a hole through the bottom of the pot they were cooking in O_o

The friendship is also very touching. When the other three guys show up in his apartment, Eisuke barely has enough money, and yet, he goes on and tries to find more work to do because he will now have roommates and he wants to be able to help them. He does not turn them away, or not help them.

So much else happens in this movie and all of it is so important that I am not even going to try telling it all. But I would strongly recommend anyone and everyone to watch this, its not your typical jdrama or movie, its so much more better. Granted, there are no quirky little themes or in your face hilarity, but its different, and totally and completely worth watching.

There is also a 'romantic' element to it although that too is tragic as it mainly deals with unrequited love and disillusionment, although Matsumoto Jun's character DOES get a happily ever after (He is the only one who does). But he is not really a main character in this movie either (At first I was really disappointed but the movie totally made up for the lack of MatsuJun.)

This is definitely not a happy movie. In the end, everyone has to face the harsh realities of life and they give up on there dreams, and choose more practical careers. Nor is it a movie of undying friendship, as they only meet after the particular summer once, in a reunion. It is not a movie that gives you the message that 'if you try hard enough, you will succeed', or 'if you are a good person, good things will happen to you.' Instead, it shows you life.

Rating: 10/10

Quotes:

I was just 8 years old when the war ended.
When I lost everything, not having anything to trust...
It was still one thing that gave courage to me& my friends...
that was manga

~Eisuke Muraoka

***
Starving is part of being an artist! It adds to the experience.

~Ryuzo Mukai

***
We can't have real jobs. I refuse to sell my body for money. (Referring to working)

~Ryuzo Mukai

***
No point in being lonely together. Isn't it easier to be lonely alone? no?

~Tokei

***
Do you remember? When you came back from your assistants job in July?
Back then you asked us,
"What is freedom?"
I remember telling you
"Freedom is doing what you want when you please. Eisuke does manga, Ryuzo does novels, Shouchi does pop songs, I do oil paintings."
Now tht summer is over, I quit painting, just like Ryuzio-kun has quit writing.
How ironic that our season of doing what we please has caused us to abandon just that.
We can't live life for paintings and novels.
If someone is there, we cannot help but do something for them.
If we are lonely we step out to find company,
we are just week willed ordinary human beings.
We were just week willed human beings.
There will never be a summer like this.
Never again will we shed the tears we cried this summer.
Never again.
In parting, I'll let the French poet Ryuzo told us about, express our feelings of farewell.
"In the face of my life all I can do is panic, such is my useless and pathetic youth.
Now, what we acquire along with our first wrinkle, is our trust in life,
this constant and this smile, which says,
'Friend, I know all about you.'
Looking back we learn, Life never deceives man, Life... has never deceived a man."

~Kei Shimokawa(In a letter to Eisuke Muraoka)

Note: My opinion of Arashi has definitely risen, before watching this, I did like their songs (although even I found some of the videos just hillarious) and I did like Matsumoto Jun, but I really did not care much about any of the other members. I only considered them to be bubblegum pop idols, but now I respect them more. The acting was superb. Specially Nino. I always thought he was this total hyper kiddy in the group, but he is reaally good at acting. The expressions on his face and his gestures were totally natural and he was really mature-ish in the movie

You can watch the movie at crunchyroll ^_^