Ôbâ fensu

Slow-paced film about a divorced super jaded guy, working as a carpenter, suddenly meeting a super crazy bipolar girl (good natural? acting by her... I mean, she is legit crazy), who works for a hostess club and some kid amusement animal park.

There's some B-story about some guy at the carpenter workplace getting hated on/abused and they all play baseball together (yawn)

The ending is super super cheesy and absolutely horrible. The ending totally reminds me of exactly the same as "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan" (1978)

One of those films where you watch it if you have absolutely nothing better to do. It is not worth your time.

...I think the plot has many inconsistencies. Also presents more than one character that are not well developed; may be that is the idea behind? In real life you do not know at all about your colleagues; co workers; schoolmates so may be is that the point? To have only a touch of possible associated stories. So could be good but the assemble and composition finally killed the story (ies)

Restrained camera work with shots of Hakodate (a place where I stayed for a few days years ago) icons like the old trolleys and slopes and the Sea, of course. Colors are very natural and there are plenty of Sun light in most scenes. If this movie had been shot with a dark palette et all it could be finished as a somber story. Aoi always delivery; she is a great actress and Odagiri is a simple cool actor.

I enjoyed this movie for what it was. Slow paced and initially not going much of anywhere. It´s a slice of life-movie dealing with mental health among other things, something I haven't seen much of in Japanese film. Because of this subject matter it can be hard to watch at times with difficult scenes but those scenes do a lot to bring depth to the movie.

What I enjoyed most was that the characters weren't any kind of special people with talents they achieve success with, these characters are just your average joes trying to survive a sometimes happy, sometimes cruel life.

I have watched a handful of Yamashita-sans movies now and look forward to the next one!