Ima, ai ni yukimasu

I just watched this movie for 8th or 9th time... It's been almost a year since I last watched this movie, and I've watched a lot of great movies in 2007, but I have come to realize that this movie is still the best movie I've watched to date.

The second and best of the TBS Summer Pure Love Trilogy, this film is far better made than Sekai no Chuushin and Taiyou no Uta. Acting was great and music is simply unforgettable. Tiny pieces of mysteries were placed throughout the movie, but everything comes together perfectly in the end. The story development of this movie has become the ultimate Junai formula, and has been copied many times since, but none of them could match this original movie. I remember almost every single line of this movie by now, but watching it inevitably left a smile on my face in many scenes, and brought tears to my eyes near the end.

Perfect casting, music, story, directing. This movie will remain my favorite film for many years to come.

Reading the summaries and reviews of the film, I had several expectations of what would happen. The grieving husband and son of a woman who died at a young age struggle with her loss. Miraculously, she comes back to life ( returning from heaven or some other place) for 6 weeks, one year after her death, during the rainy season, only to leave again after the season is over.

Considering the "coming back to life" plot device isn't without precedent, the American film "Ghost" (with Demi Moore) is but one example, I expected the characters to display the usual gamut of emotions - initial shock that the person has come back, joy that they get to relive their moments together, and ultimately grief that he/she must depart again. This film was not without those moments, but the quality of the acting and the beautiful scenery and photography put it a cut above the rest. However, what puts this film into "classic" status is the ingenious weaving of past, present, and future to deliver a stunning finale that will put every missing piece of the puzzle into place while leaving the audience simply awestruck with emotion. There are few films which I would tell a friend or associate that they "must see this now." This is one of them. Just see it and be amazed.

I have seen films quite a lot in recent years,but have never shed tears on anyone of them until I saw this one, which is about the true love between man and woman, parents and their child. Before I saw this film, I often wonder if love is really more powerful than life and death, and if this is true, why is contradiction and hatred everywhere? After I saw the film, I feel so moved with it I come to believe love is the most beautiful thing ever existed,though it is the hardest thing to find. I also like to give a 10 to it's soundtrack. Every time I listen to the music, I seem to see the beautiful pictures in the film again,the silent forest,the rain,and the lake. I recommend this film to you all,hope you will enjoy it.

This movie is amazingly touching. I do have some expectation before I watch the movie. When I finished it, it is clear that, this movie is way better than I expected.

The casting is excellent. Every character live in the world of the story. The actors are not acting in the movie. They live in it. The actor who play the role of the son , Yuji, is especially good. Some scenes with him are actually heartbreakingly good.

The movie might be a little slow for some audients. But I find it helps to build up the mood and draw the whole picture in detail. If you had read the plot of the movie, you might say, "yeah, good old story. I can tell how it ends". But I had to say, not till the last minute, you would not know the whole story.

The director and the playwright do an excellence job. Every detail had been take care of. The ending echoes the beginning. And the plot is as smooth as silk.

This movie is not about only about the love between two people. It is also love of family and one's will to face the fate. It may not be a masterpiece like Godfather. But I am sure this is one of the best Japanese movies I had seen in years, and I seen a lot. All in all, this is a heartwarming movie. It did not resolve the problem but it shows hope for tomorrow.

If you ask me if I like this movie. Sure I am. If not I will not spend times to write all this.

A few years ago, Korean romances took over the market for the romance genre which had been held uncontested by Japan. While at least half a dozen made it big in the Pacific region, the most successful worldwide has to be My Sassy Girl (2001). The onslaught however soon ran out of steam, even for works by MSG's director Kwak Jae-young. His still widely acclaimed Classic (2003) had in fact faded somewhat, and not even bringing back Jun Ji-hyun from MSG could save Windstruck (2004). In the meantime, Japanese romances are making a come back. "Poetic" director Shunji Iwai brought a breath of fresh air with Hana and Alice (2004). It is Ima, ai ni yukimasu, however, that is the best romance coming out of Japan and Korea in the last ten years.

The movie starts with a quaint little house nestled in the most idyllically beautiful, lush green countryside, where a shopkeeper of a cake shop delivers a birthday cake to a young man Yuji, who is making breakfast. We are then taken back to the time when Yuji is six, a year after he has lost his mother Mio through illness and is living a life of mutual support and love with his father Taku. Before her death, however, Mio promised her husband and son that she would come back after a year and stay with them during the rainy season.

When the rain starts, Taku and Yuji find in the woods a woman looking exactly like Mio, who has apparently lost her memory completely. The father and son naturally have no problem believing that it is Mio coming back from heaven, and bring her home. Although in a way she is still a stranger, she seems to accept that she is Mio, and asks Taku to tell her the story of how they first met and fell in love. Through that process, they fall in love a second time (I am assuming at this point that she is indeed Mio). As we share the joy of the family reunited as well as the love story of young Taku and Mio through the flash back, the six-week rainy season is mercilessly coming closer and closer to the end.

All the time while watching the movie, alongside with emotionally becoming more and more identified with these three people whom I came to care for, I found a rational part of me that kept assessing how the story would go. Is it really Mio coming back from heaven to fulfil a promise? Is it a woman who happens to look like Mio but has a story of her own? Or is everything just the imagination of the father and son? The revelation came, not in the form of a super twist dropped like a like a bomb, but through the last twenty minutes' gentle unfolding of past events that provide answers not only to the mystery of Mio's appearance, but also to many things we have noticed throughout the movie that register subconsciously (only subconsciously) as questions. Even more important, we saw another layer about the entire story that deepens our understanding of and care for this family.

But all this would not mean a thing without the wonderful, wonderful performance of Yuko Takeuchi as Mio. Shido Nakamura and Akashi Takei as father and son complement her performance perfectly and, together with the beautiful photography and heart-warming music, make this film the best in it genre in the decade.

The English title of "Be with you" is not devised haphazardly, but has a meaning.