Another favorite of mine that has been long overdue for some posts and of course by the heading you see that it's Nao, plenty more coming up in the near future for her but for her first posts we'll be taking a quick look at her 2007 film, The Signs of Love.
The movie starts out briefly in 2002, jumps back to 1997 then returns to 2002 and finally ends up in 2007, we'll start off here in 1997. Sayaka(Nao) and Keita(Takezai) are 20 year old college students who meet by fate helpng a friend out making a movie, in it they got married, perhaps an omen for what's to happen by the film's end? The two of them end up hitting it off quite quickly, they really enjoy each other's company and well, before you know it they've fallen in love with one another which shocked to no end the friends of theirs for some reason. Two years later in 1999 they've just graduated college and Sayaka suggested as a graduation trip they travel to Barcelona before they start their careers, main reason for her suggestion is that Keita will be working as an architect and really has a fascination with the Sagrada Familia.
This may have been the most enjoyable part of the movie as they really get closer to each other while in Barcelona, plus the location seemed to add that little of extra to the movie, they vow to return in 10 years to visit the uncompleted Sagrada Familia while holding hands. But the mundane slowly creeps in as they return to Tokyo, both obtain entry level jobs, Keita seems to have possibilities of a bright future but Sayaka who had studied to be an editor ended up in a bit of a dead end job which she ended up quitting on a whim and had problems finding a new job in the field of editing but eventually does find a good job in that field. However both are getting along better than ever until Keita's boss who has been noticing his potential gives him a nice promotion but the drawback is that it's back in Spain and the position will be lasting at least 3 years. Unsure of what to do he's about to ask Sayaka to be his wife but at the wedding of a friend of theirs she drops the bombshell that she no longer wants to be with him, that she really wants someone who makes more money with a brighter future. This even shocked their friends even more, though it never came out why Sayaka said those hurtful words think she did it as Keita was wavering to go to Spain or not, she didn't want to be the reason he gave up such an oppurtunity such as that. So for the next 5 years, the above happened in the 2002 period, both just continued on in their same jobs and also both remained single and it appears as both didn't try to find a new mate as they both cared for each other but this was also something that never really came out or was explained.
Seems to be longer than most of my reviews so do end up a bit quickly but the movie also did that too, it's now 2007 and Sayaka on a spur of the moment decision travels back to Barcelona to possibly hook back up with Keita but while there she sees him with another woman, there was also a child with them and she naturally thought he was married and it was their kid. Sayala travels back to Japan and continues working at her now stable job but Keita learns off her wanting to see him in Barcelona, he wasn't married or had a kid so it was a big misunderstanding on Sayaka's part so he dashed back to Japan to find Sayaka and rekindle their love which never should have been lost. Ending was not as good as the rest of the film, Keita comes back and finds her in a very big sappy ending as there are fireworks going off around them and you knew right then they would be back together which they were quite quickly as the next scene has them being married back in a church in Barcelona which is how the film comes to it's conclusion.
Not sure how to grade this film, far from being a big winner but it was an enjoyable watch, a bit slow paced but interesting enough where it kept my attention the whole film. Ending was
not all that good, wrapped up too quickly and tidy, you could see it coming but hoped it wouldn't end that way but alas it did. Perhaps far from a classic in the drama/romance genre but would still recommend this, well acted and Nao is superb, she is quite an attractive woman but is also a very charismatic actress, she really turned in a fine performance here. So in conclusion would recommend this, a rating of 7.5/10 sounds about right for this, a must see for any Nao fan, also check out the next 2 posts of many screenshots of her from the film and as mentioned have many more posts coming up for Nao.
Year: 2007 Running Time: 115 minutes Director: Hiroshi Chino
Cast:
Nao Matsushita as Sayaka Miyamoto
Terunosuke Takezai as Keita Fukushima
Rest of the cast, really besides those 2 there were no other really 'big' roles though they were all important ones.
Taizo Harada as Takumi Inoue
Ken Ishiguro as Daisuke Goto
Mina Fujii as Asuka Miyamoto
Keiko Matsuzaka as Yoko Mjyamoto
Tomohisa Yuge as Minoru Hirao
No comments:
Post a Comment