Caseworker Kyousuke Okutsu (Tetsuji Tamayama, who starred in Norwegian Wood) is then assigned to uncover the man’s identity for a proper funeral. The film then follows Kyosuke as he traces their final footsteps along the coast of eastern Japan, coming to terms with his own past along the way.
Sounds like a dreary sob-fest? Well, let us tell you the bad news: it is.
The truth is that, films about pets – dogs in particular – are not to everyone’s taste, and we openly admit that we’re not huge animal lovers. We like dogs, yes, but have never had the chance to own one, and hence never experienced a deep bond with a pet; nevertheless we do like the occasional animal movie which has genuine heart and exemplary craftsmanship, like the recently released Red Dog. But unlike Red Dog, this film is so ridiculously melodramatic throughout its course that the whole film seemed like a blatant act of exploitation.
It’s not that the film didn’t make you feel for the characters; we did, in fact, feel moved at parts, as we suppose many of you will too. It is just how it does it that bothers us. You get prolonged shots of the dog Happy, and his yearning, winsome eyes; you get slow-motion shots of him running towards his master; you get the obligatory cuddling scene between owner and pet. The whole film invokes all the clichés of the pet movie genre yet without evincing any genuine heart. Happy here comes across as a mere servant, when the filmmakers should have being trying to showcase his personality (what, they didn’t think dogs have personalities?) so he actually passes off as an actual character instead of a mere tool to wring your tear ducts dry.
To make things worse, the film is so devoid of laughs that there is little to puncture the overwrought tone of the film, a deliberate move on the part of the director to keep things morose and solemn. At the end, you’ll come out feeling utterly cheated.
SUMMARY: Overwrought and exploitative.
RATING: 2 out of 5 stars