pinokiyo This is your typical example of "The Emperor's New Clothes"If you have better and more important things to do, this is not a film to watch. You're really not missing anything by skipping this film. It's one of those sleeper films that you'd play during midnight and eventually fall asleep to. Don't get me wrong, I was actually excited to watch this, but I mean seriously, somebody has to speak out the truth -- this is really just your average movie where nothing really happens. So it has a cute cast, especially Suzu Hirose, and it's by a well known acclaimed director (seems where most of the bias is coming from), but there's no real suspense/drama/conflict or anything. It's just like another overrated film "Linda Linda Linda", where nothing really happens, but people seem to love it just because of the girls.One might argue, "Well, it's showing the real life day in the life of that Hollywood can never make!" Well, of course they won't make something like this because it's just simply boring; just showing sisters taking care of each other is absolutely boring. (I mean, honestly, I don't care for Hollywood blockbuster/action films/especially all the superhero movies either, I'm obviously not expecting that, but I also watch a lot of foreign/Japanese films and this really is overrated stuff.) Sure, to a foreigner, just seeing the countryside location taking place in Kamakura, Japan, and random bike riding scenes under the cherry blossoms is all beautiful and all, but that's all superficial. Where's the story? Too many Weeaboos, or people exclusively watching this at film festivals, overpraising this film than what it really is.

Red-125 The Japanese film Umimachi Diary was shown in the U.S. with the title Our Little Sister (2015). Hirokazu Koreeda directed the movie.Haruka Ayase plays Sachi Kôda, one of three young-adult sisters living in a home owned by their mother. The other sisters are Yoshino, played by Masami Nagasawa, and Chika, played by Kaho. These actors look enough like each other to be sisters, and they are realistic characters. Each has her own personality, and, like any three people living together, they squabble.Their mother has abandoned them 14 years ago, so Sachi has been both mother and sister to them. As the movie opens, we learn that their father has died. The sisters go to the father's funeral, and meet their half-sister Suzu, who is portrayed very well by the young actor Suzu Hirose. She is their father's daughter, but she is the daughter of his second wife. He has married a third time. Now, she is an orphan, although her step-mother could provide for her. Instead, the three sisters invite her to come and live with them.The remainder of the movie is a calm reflection of Suzo's integration into the family. She actually knows their father better than any of the three older sisters, because she was with him from her birth until his death. So the older women ask her for more information about the father. Information about ancestors is important to the Japanese, and we see this theme repeated throughout the film.The movie was interesting to me because there was no fiery revelations, no scenes of caustic criticism, and no horribly sad moments. We follow the women through two years of life, and we get to know them and care about them.I learned the some facts about Japanese culture that I didn't know. For example, the spiritual importance of cherry blossoms, and the ritual of making plum wine.The acting was uniformly excellent. All the sisters are attractive in a low-key way. Haruka Ayase, the oldest sister, has been described as one of the most beautiful women on the planet, and I think this is true. However, what is striking about her in the movie is her calm, competent, dignified presence. She looks intelligent and caring, which is what her role calls for.This is a movie worth seeking out. We saw it in Rochester's excellent Little Theatre. It won't work as well on the small screen. Still, It's an outstanding movie, Don't miss it.

Janos Gereben With all the brutality in the world - and in many movie theaters as well - Hirokazu Koreeda's films bring relief and pleasure. The Japanese director focuses on families and children, but his work is free of cutesiness, overt sentimentality, never taking the easy way to the victory of good over evil or cheap happy ending. His latest is "Our Little Sister" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3756788/) getting its US release on July 8, 2016, and to be seen in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning July 15. It is a heartwarming, but eminently realistic story of three young-adult sisters living together in a seaside town south of Tokyo. The "little sister" of the title is a 13-year-old half sister they adopt meeting her for the first time at the funeral of their long-estranged father.Kore-eda reveals family memories, secrets, connections, conflicts - maintaining constant interest in the story, but keeping clear of soap-opera characteristics, and gradually increasing sympathy for the film's characters, certainly for the four young women, but also the rest of the large cast, even the easy-to-dislike absent (and quirky) mother, appearing near the end of the film and becoming a key player in a central conflict. "Our Little Sister" is just as gripping and memorable as Kore-eda's best: "Nobody Knows," "Still Walking," "Like Father, Like Son," and "I Wish" - all humanistic, character-oriented films that integrate entertainment, wisdom, and a positive philosophy... all low-key and subtle. Kore-eda is the Chekhov of cinema - without Russian sadness and pessimism. "Our Little Sistem" is based on Akimi Yoshida's "Umimachi Diary." Both the manga and the film emphasize the physical and social environment, even while focusing on the four women and their relationships within and without the family. Sachi (Ayase Haruka), Yoshino (Masami Nagasawa) and Chika (Kaho) are the three sisters, three established, skillful actresses, the two older ones elegant and attractive; Kaho is quirky, but just as good- natured as the others. Hiroshi is a relative newcomer, giving an eminently believable performance as the orphan teenager, even though the actress was about 22 when the film was made. Whimsical, moving acts of goodness are set in an environment of reality, including conflict, illness, even death, and in the end, there is a typical Kore-eda mild catharsis, nothing forced or dictated, just allowing the audience to share in "pretty good lives."

Johan Dondokambey Three sisters Sachi, Yoshino and Chika live together in their old house. Their father abandoned them as kids and ran our with another woman. Soon their mother followed suit and left them with their grandmother. As their father died, while already married to his third wife, they find their half sister Suzu, their father's daughter from her second wife. The movie tells the story with Suzu as a new addition to the house, including the friction with the sister's mother, Suzu's development in her new environment, and the deaths of close people the sisters know from childhood. I really like this movie. It's no secret that Japan can also produce gripping family drama stories like this. Our Little Sister (2015) tells us a "what if" story which may not happen in the real world, but the story's development is nicely logic and emotional at the same time, without having to be full with confrontation. I like how the story stretches wide enough but still gets confined into the limits of the small town where the sisters live in.What strikes as strange is that this is the second good Japan drama movie that has great story after Departures (2008). Both movies strongly feature themes related to death, particularly death of an estranged father. Both also focus on the live of small Japanese town instead of the metropolitan or the rural area.Acting-wise, Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho and Suzu Hirose did well in giving life to their characters. I like how the they kept their character steady along the whole two hours of the movie. They acted well that audience will easily sympathize to them, even though their characters have oddly awkward backgrounds facing each other, particularly Suzu to the sisters. My say for Our Little Sister (2015) is a solid 7 out of 10. For me it's a really recommended watch. But then again it may be hard to find this movie in local theaters.