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Illusions take many forms in Gekidan Hitori's Bolt From the Blue. Right from the start, we're shown a series of sleight of hand tricks but the magician performing the tricks isn't an illusionist, he's a bar attendant. Haruo seems to have given up on any desire to be a successful stage magician, disillusioned with the direction his life has taken. When he goes to pick up the belongings of his estranged father who has just died in somewhat in far from pleasant circumstances, the reality of just who his parents were and what really happened in the past hits him like a ... well, like a bolt from the blue when Haruo is flung back to 1973.

The time-travel science is a bit dodgy as Bolt from the Blue is not an exercise in nostalgia, as it often is in Japanese reflections on the past, nor despite appearances is it an attempt to look back at an idealised past and question where it all went wrong. Gekidan Hitori's film - adapted from his own novel - might seem to use the illusion of cinema to force an fantasy of the possibility of second chances, but in a film about illusionists, appearances can inevitably be deceptive...

Unpopular magician, Haruo travels through a time warp 40 years ago. There, he meets his parents when young. Haruo becomes popular there and forms d duo with his father. Later, his mother's pregnancy is revealed and Haruo rethinks myself and confronts his own secret of his birth.

Ohizumi you plays Haruo and Gekidan Hitori plays Haruo's father. They are Japanese comedians so comical parts of this movie are very funny. I think casting is good. Though story is common time slip SF, main casts' nice performance and comical story development made this film be in union and unique, I think. Story is concrete and simple so it is easy to understand, which is also attractive.

I like Ohizum you so I savored his act. There are funny scenes but, moving scenes appear at good timing. This film told an importance of family or family love. I enjoy this movie!

I am not a professional reviewer nor an amateur one. I am just an audience. The rating is high not because its ground breaking nor it is very creative on the director's part. To sum up in a sentence it is a melodrama of the uplifting kind.

The most important criteria is how it makes me feel after you have finish it. And it uplifted my spirits.

For me what is most important is for an audience not to feel cheated of an hour and a half to some popcorn fare that you will neither remember nor care the moment you finish it. That is cheating as the story is nether enjoyable nor affect me (could not relate to it emotionally at all).

A good story whatever the genre maybe if audience cannot relate to it then that movie has no payoff to be watched at all.