Japanese Story (2003)

Very disappointing...

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Absolutely Fantastic

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Geologist Sandy Edwards (Toni Collette) is stuck with babysitting Hiromitsu Tachibana around the Australian desert looking at mining operations. He's the son of the boss of a giant Japanese conglomerate. She's hoping to sell them her computer program. He's demanding, clueless and insecure. She's loud. There is a cultural and language barrier. They get stuck out in the middle of the desert. They fall for each other and then it all ends.Hiromitsu is off-putting. If the movie is simply about them ending up in a life altering friendship, this would be a great movie. The cultural differences are a little too silly at times. The romance is really silly. These two characters have so little chemistry that they may have negative chemistry. It is to the credit of Toni Collette that it works in any fashion at all. After the "incident", she gets to stretch out and the movie turns into something more.

Japanese Story is an interesting portrayal of how people can find oneself in unlikely situations. But the main ending point will confuse people on why someone needs to die for the screen writers to convey their points across to their audiences. And do the Japanese men commonly take rumspringas to Australia to sow their wild oats with Aussie women in order to become a better husband and father. This comment comes from the note Hiromitsu leaves for Sandy summing up how she and the desert landscape made him a better person. His wife could sense more than just a business trip occurs out in the nothingness of the desert. I feel like it's a nice prequel to Hall Pass but without the happy ending like what happened to Owen Wilson's character. Hiromitsu scored in Australia in order to put with his boring life in Japan for the rest of his days. I feel the screenplay failed in finding a less abrupt way to causally having Hiromitsu fly off into the eastern sunset and settled for an easy way out in his death.

"The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia. The term 'the outback' is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named 'the bush' which, colloquially, can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. "Toni Collett is Sandy Edwards, an Australian geologist doing work for a large iron ore mining company owned by a wealthy Japanese industrial concern. The son of the owner is coming for a visit, they aren't quite sure why, but Sandy is asked to be his guide, to help him see what he wants to see.The Japanese son is Gotaro Tsunashima as Hiromitsu Tachibana, or 'Hiro' for short. Even though in real life he and Collett are just 6 months apart in age, he looks like he could be in his early 20s and she in her mid-30s. At first there is nothing but friction between them, he seems to think she is simply his driver, she sees him as a rude Japanese. For Hiro this seems to be the equivalent of a "walkabout". He is married with children, he mentions that he is under a lot of pressure, presumably to take over the company from his successful father. He seems to just want to see Australia, its vastness, its uniqueness, before he fully settles into his Japanese fate. At one point he muses, in the deserted outback, that Japan has so many people and little land, but here there is so much land and very few people. It is a revelation to him.Then comes the mutual bonding experience. He gets her to drive into an area they probably should not have, no cell phone signal and the 4-wheel drive SUV gets stuck deep, up to the axles, in red sandy soil. The winch burns out before pulling the vehicle out. It gets cold at night, they have to build fires to stay warm. But Hiro has an idea, maybe he can dig a path and line it with many small sticks, to get enough traction. It works, they are both joyous, and their personal barriers soften.Many will not like this movie because it is mostly slow, a character study, in vast and often featureless outback. But the actors are superb, and it mainly becomes the story of how Sandy can handle new love and grief. SPOILERS: At one point in their outback exploring, Sandy says to Hiro, "I'll introduce you to an Australian expression, 'last one in is a rotten egg'", as she pulls off her top and dives into a shallow secluded pool. Then we see Hiro go to a different spot, near some small trees, and as he dives in she shouts 'No, no, no, no, no, no' in quick sequence. He doesn't surface right away, and when he eventually does he is dead. She panics, she tries to resuscitate him. She finally has to drag his body to the SUV, get him to a town, finds an undertaker. She had fallen in love with this man from a strange country, they had slept together at least a couple of times, it seemed the feeling was mutual. In grief, the story ends as she is in the airport terminal building, watching the Quantas plane take off with Hiro's body in a casket aboard the plane.

I watched this thinking it would be a great journey. Rave reviews, awards, life changing, etc ... Good God. This was one of the most awful, insufferable Australian movies I have ever seen. And I *am* Australian. I don't like to dis movies made in my home country, but this movie most certainly deserves a damn good thrashing. Mindbogginlingly stereotypical, annoying and boring as watching sh!t fester. Good thing I didn't have to pay money as well to see it (Borrowed a friend's video). I'm glad to see by other reviews I'm not the only one who despised it, annoyed that my time and intelligence were so sorely insulted. Toni Collette's atrocious overacting (nothing personal though), especially in the unconvincing grief scenes did nothing to help this lamo movie, in fact made it worse and I only watched it to see if it got better. Needn't've bothered. The first part of it was boring as hell, then the second half was just plain God damn depressing. I was hoping to learn more about the outback and more about Australian geology and have more scenes with Toni's character's work (she was supposed to be a geologist), rather than this annoying yuppie chick, having major league hissy fits and non-stop winging.And the movie was just *starting* to get good, he was just starting to loosen up and enjoy himself and then he dies ... and it goes even more downhill from there than when it started - hard to believe but true. I was hoping for a sensual, spiritual and moving journey through the outback, not some b!tchy angsty crap that thinks it's good because it's got people screaming in it and call it acting. The "death scene" did not even seem convincing, at first I thought the guy was playing and going to pop up and scare her or something. It did not seem the water was that shallow where he dived - and with arms outstretched? If he was hurt the worst that would have happened is he would have broken an arm or wrist. What a cop out just to kill him off and get out of writing anything more intelligent or insightful. Who gets paid to write these idiotic movies (and gets them produced) when there are literally *millions* of good writers out there who struggle their guts out to get their stuff out there to knocked back at every turn? Very disappointed. This "Story" could have been great with more of a journey, more soul, feeling and more about the outback and what *real* Australian geologists do... As we Aussies say: "Bugger." Waste of time, talent and videotape.The only good thing of this movie was the beautiful outback scenery, the wonder and the danger, and two cultures learning each others differences - other than that it was overrated melodramatic, pathetic hype. Actually, I spent more quality time updating my webpage whilst watching this over-rated boof-brained, sad attempt of what could have been a wonderful story.Want to see a brilliant Aussie movie with non stop action, feeling, and a sense of awe and wonder - watch "Gabriel" Made only four years later with much less money and a lot more soul - literally. I found "Gabriel's Story" much more convincing, heartwarming and awakening.