Tokyo55 I found this film, saw the reviews and figured I'd be giving it 10 stars, as I love films about and especially shot in Japan which I adore. Sadly, this seems like it was made by a failing freshman college student. It's about nothing and not like Seinfeld was a show about nothing. Not even worth a long review pointing out all the flaws, as it already wasted too much of my time watching it. One of the worst movies (it's not a film) I've ever seen and THEE worst Japanese film I've ever seen.

cindyy-montoya This so called film is about as empty as my bowels after drinking five gallons of prune juice. It was slooooooooooow and jumped around from one idea to the next. This film has a serious case of ADD and never follows one train of thought. There are scenes that hook you in, making you think it will go somewhere... Then it just disappears into thin air. I feel like it's the long uphill struggle on a roller coaster, only when you get to the highly anticipated top, the tracks flat-line for five miles going two miles per hour and then switches tracks and goes up again. Many of the side stories go absolutely nowhere and dissolve into thin air. Who is this old man? In the beginning of the film the main character is told she must see this man and she'll understand why when she gets there. I still don't understand. Is he supposed to take care of her? The film also makes the boyfriend look like a bad person, but his girlfriend lied to him. She is the one at fault for not telling him she was a prostitute. The end of the movie is absolutely worthless. The man spends his time walking around looking out the windows only to be hit by a rock. The end. Where was the plot? Oh yeah, it called in sick and decided to move as far away from the movie as possible. This review jumps around with incomplete thoughts to simulate how the whole movie went.If movies were compared to food, a good movie would have the appetizer, followed by the side dishes and main course, then a sweet dessert conclusion. This movie had no meat, nothing sweet, and nothing nutrisious to eat! It was more like a bag of expired potato chips, each chip being as boring as the last, nothing different. Pretty soon all of the chips (movie scenes) are gone and you're just looking in an empty bag with no filling satisfaction. If this movie were manifested in joke form it would go like this:Knock knockWho's there?WhoWho who?Knock knockWho's thereBananaBanana who?Oh look my flight has arrived!!!Yes... The randomness is well... Random. To put it in a nutshell, this film will give me brain cancer. (Note there isn't even a good conclusion to my own review... Again simulating the movie)

bandw This is a drama that takes place in a 24-hour period. In that period we get acquainted with the two main characters--a young Japanese woman, Akiko, and an older man, Mr. Watanabe. Akiko is a student and works as a call girl on the side (or is she a call girl who works as a student on the side?) Mr. Watanabe is a retired sociology professor who, in his 80s, keeps an oar in the water by working on translations.Against her wishes Akiko is asked (actually instructed) to travel some distance from Tokyo to entertain Mr. Watanabe for the evening. By filming scenes in unexpected ways the movie kept my interest in spite of its being slow moving. For example, the opening scene in a bar has a voice-over from Akiko while the camera stays focused on a table other than Akiko's. I expected that the people at the table being viewed would be of interest, but, no. The camera finally focuses on Akiko. I can understand why some people may find the pacing tedious, but most all scenes ring true and with each scene we learn a little more about the characters. Much is communicated non-verbally, like a bored yawn from Akiko or Watanabe's dozing off while waiting in traffic but running down three flights of stairs like a young man in an urgent situation. Many scenes take place in cars, for example there is a scene in a taxi where Akiko listens to seven messages on her answering machine. We learn from that scene that there is a third important person, Noriaki, who is Akiko's boyfriend. Well, he seems to want to be her boyfriend to the point of marriage, but Akiko's feelings for Noriaki remain somewhat of a mystery. In fact Akiko remains somewhat of a mystery. Her grandmother is in town and wants to visit, but Akiko ignores her phone requests and then cries over why she is reacting that way. Akiko seems to know she is behaving like an ass, but persists in it. The night that Akiko spends with Mr. Watanabe does not play out in any way that I could have imagined--I was left to provide some details on that.I found the non-traditional storytelling refreshing. This is a film equivalent of a short story driven by character development. And, like a good short story, its ending packs a punch.P.S. Noriaki should patent his process for replacing timing belts on Volvos--he accomplishes in ten minutes what usually takes hours.

politic1983 Crossing cultures and language barriers is something happening more and more in cinema, with well-known directors establishing their name for making films from their homeland, looking abroad to try out their skills in a different culture. With 'Like Someone to Love', Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami heads to Japan to work with a Japanese cast and crew to look at the concept of love from various different angles and perspectives. Akiko, a young student working as a prostitute, ignores both her grandmother and fiancé to let herself be talked into working the night before an exam. But her client, an aging academic, seems more to simply want an evening's company than full sex with a woman. Seeing her off to her exam the next morning, both Akiko and her client, Takashi, are left to deal with the consequences of her deceit. 'Like Someone in Love' is a film that is lacking in many respects, but indulgent in others. Various plot holes leave the audience having to make their own deductions as to how things developed, rather than making it clear on watching. Time that could have been spent on this is instead spent on lengthy shots with little actual action. The first two scenes consist of one half of an extended phone conversation, followed by a close up of Akiko in the back of a taxi listening to all seven of her voicemail messages. With this the case, the audience can be forgiven for thinking that the next two hours will be excruciatingly long. The film, despite lacking in plot, is more an analysis of the different relationships Akiko has with the people in her life: her dutiful grandmother, whom she ignores; her prone-to-aggression fiancé, Noriaki, whom she deceives; and her client, the aging Takashi, whom she turns to in crisis. The most likable of the three main characters is Takashi, whose bumbling around Akiko provide some humour and his earnest assistance to her show him to simply be a kind man that is lonely. His discussion with Noriaki is perhaps the film's most important, indicating that neither Noriaki and Akiko are ready for marriage. But while humour and wisdom come from Takashi in parts, other flaws lead 'Like Someone to Love' to miss as much as it hits. While the question is asked as to what Akiko sees in Noriaki, the question could also be asked with the roles reversed, with the only good relationship Akiko appearing to have one with someone she has known less than 24 hours, making her less of an appealing character than required in the lead; coming across more as a spoiled brat than abused victim. The sudden development in Noriaki's anger requires assumptions to be made rather than good storytelling. The intentional sudden and abrupt ending shows the problems that misguided love has brought the trio to, and in that sense the film works in getting its point across. Though one could argue that Kiarostami takes too long to get there. Having made many shorts in the past, perhaps 'Like Someone to Love' would have been better made in a much shorter format, with the idea good, but the execution, like the film's characters, somewhat misguided and indulgent.