From the NTV site for this TV movie:
Yamamura Shuji (Tamaki Hiroshi) runs staffing "Family Romance Company" - a company that rents out people to act like their client's family members for occasions like weddings, funerals and meeting with teachers. One day, a customer, who wants to be loved by a family, comes to the "Family Romance Company." The customer's name is Tosaki Ryunosuke (Takenaka Naoto), who only has only one month left to live. Yamamura Shuji takes on the request of Tosaki Ryunosuke, but something which Yamamura Shuji does not expect occurs in the process.
After watching too many so-so dramas and movies this was a nice surprise, really much better than expected and Rena looked even better than ever. Yamamura's business is doing quite well, he has so many clients who are looking to hire a 'family' he actually has to turn some people away. Enter the newbie Beniko(Rena) who is hired on a trial basis and had no clue what the job or company was about, she was a big aghast when she found out what they really did, slowly though she became to believe what they were doing was a good thing, especially when Tosaki enters the scene.
Tosaki has been told he has cancer and has only six months to live and he wants to make a video of his 'End Story' book, the reason he has to hire a family is that he has been estranged from his wife and daughter for many years and as we find out towards the end he also has a son who refuses to see him. Beniko is assigned to be his 'daughter' while Ono is chosen to be his 'wife', she's a veteran at this and doesn't get along too well with Beniko in the beginning. All seems normal at first as the pair visit Tosaki every day, eating with him, just having conversations, etc. until Beniko starts to get a bit closer to him, the pair in a way start to have a father-daughter kind of relationship, she even stays with him when their alloted time runs out. The two travel to many places as his ending book has many lists of things he wants to do and people to see and she goes with him everywhere as Beniko is also videotaping everything they do for a film set to his ending story lists.
Tosaki is so happy that he finally has a 'daughter' to be with that he's really enjoying life and forgets for a while he has cancer until one day at a checkup he's told it's now in an advanced stage and he doesn't have much time to live. After that he puts Beniko into his will leaving his real family quite angry but they have nothing to complain about as they've ignored him for years, should also be noted that he was a somewhat wealthy man owning his own company. Well after these events the story ends up a bit quickly as Tosaki enters a hospital to live out his remaining days with Beniko often at his side with her trusty video camera but she does truly care about him. His illness had advanced so rapidly that he died just a short time after entering the hospital without any of his real family coming to oay him any last respects. Beniko comes up with a great idea to make all his videos into a movie called Ending Story which is what they did, even his son came to the screening of the film where his father apologized for the riff that happened between the two, tad over dramatic but not overly so. And so ended the segment with Tosaki as Beniko was hired full time and as the movie is ending we see that she's a full fledged believer in the services they provide for people who need families.
As I mentioned above this was an enjoyable watch, nothing to really rave about but it was a good story and they did it in a way which made everyone believable, nothing over the top or overly dramatic. Don't know if these kinds of places exist in Japan but wouldn't doubt if they do, their business was certainly booming. Fine job by the cast, really all faces you'd know if you've watched amny dramas or films, Rena seems to be getting better all the time, she certainly made this film as good as it was so this ends with a recommendation from me and would give it a solid 8.5/10. Next few posts have many, many screenshots from the film that are worth checking out with one just dedicated to Rena.
Air date: Friday July 27th, 2012 at 9:00 pm on NTV with a rating of 9.7%.
Cast:
Hiroshi Tamiki as Shuji Yamamura
Rena Tanaka as Beniko Kobashi
Kazue Fukiishi as Kaori Sawa
Naoto Takenaka as Ryunosuke Tosaki
Izumi Yamaguchi as Megumi Ono
Yuichiro Nakayama as Kenichiro Yoshikawa
Anna Nose as Kotone Kubo
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