Aichaku

I was a bit worried when I first started watching this because it looks less like a normal BL movie than I was expecting. Having said that, I think this movie kind of got the balance right.

The romance in the movie is lovely. It was very cute, but still felt realistic enough that non-BL fans could enjoy it. The starry sky scene and the cafe fantasy were for sure for BL fans. I don't know if there was ever a foreign lead in a BL movie before, but this might be the first. It was very interesting to watch and added some elements to the movie that I hadn't seen before in BL.

If someone is looking for a LGBTQ+ movie that has strong social messages attached to it, I'm not sure if they will be satisfied with this. It certainly has a message. For a BL movie it almost has too much of a message. (Do you see what I mean about getting the balance right?) I thought that the main message was about love in general and how important it is. What I really liked was that Aichaku was about all kinds of love, so it was easy to feel attached to the world of the movie.

Since Aichaku means "attachment," perhaps that was the goal. If so, they certainly accomplished it.

I've been watching this movie often since I discovered it, and every time it moves me as if it were the first time! I usually love movies where the main message is clear from the start, but in this case, there's the surprise that love can do anything! Ken is a boy shaped by the bitterness of life. Without emotions, he suffers because he can't express them and doesn't know what he wants from his life. Then Luke, with his simplicity, wins Ken's heart. This movie is a succession of emotions, but it's not boring because at times it's funny! A beautiful movie! I highly recommend it! The actors are magnificent!

In 2023, I participated in the crowd funding for this and Max Emerson's novel. I was a bit worried because it felt like there was a long wait between the end of the campaign and the release of the movie. They apparently sent out an email with download codes for the movie in 2024 for people who purchased it from the crowd funding and I must have missed it.

I was really happy to see the finished movie and I'm glad to say it was worth the wait. They said that they were mainly using the money from the crowd funding to help with post production and it really shows. The music they got for the movie is really good and I was surprised to find that most of the songs are original.

Originality really is what makes this movie special. There's so many things that are different about this movie, it's hard to write it all with out giving a lot of the movie away. They way they play with language, the setting, the flow of the characters all felt really fresh and made you want to see more of it. Also, as a mom I really liked the way moms were portrayed in this movie.

I hope there's another movie or something else. Aichaku ends in a way that all of the questions are answered, but the characters are all moving on to new things. You want to see how that works out.

I'm not a foreigner and I'm not gay. I don't understand everything in this movie. I liked that it still made me feel like I was not an enemy when I watched it. It didn't make fun of Japanese people and straight people were not the villain. It was about life conflicts and all kinds of love. The villain is just situations the characters are in. They have to figure out what is moving forward.

Was it a perfect movie? No. Was it an interesting movie? Yes. I recommend it. It is worth checking out, especially since it's free on prime video. If it was not free, I am not sure what I would think or feel. For something free though I felt like it had a lot of value, so maybe I would not mind.

Trite, self indulgent and bad. Just bad overall.

I won't even begin to voice my opinion after a reviewer (above or below me here), I'll call them double D said the exact same thing I was thinking as I read each of their paragraphs. There isn't even an OUNCE of chemistry between them, nada.

The Japanese lead was incredibly good to look at, I will give you that and he kept my interest for the film. That being said, even in Japanese he couldn't act as way out of a wet paper bag. No offense my friend, I'm not attacking you personally if you read this review...but given what I viewed, you would not have acted your way out a out of a wet, perforated bag.

As for the American lead, it's been a long, long time since I've seen such incredibly poor and self indulgent melodramatic turns, heaped under a pile of what the actor thought he was emoting, emotions, topped by all sorts of VERY stereotypical, "barbie like" head throws and twists and with all KINDS of stomping and swishing going on when they were upset. This is how an adult, who goes to Japan to teach English, carries themselves?

Was this supposed to be a trans film, maybe a lady/boy type of film? I am being dead serious.

I'm hoping that this is just a sophomore attempt and then it gives everyone involved the chance to learn and grow and make better each time you produce and then present. I'd love to give you more than two stars but I'm sorry, the American lead destroyed it for me, it's not even worth the time nor the effort to point out some of the poor camera angles, the lighting, the direction, and how someone, never it seems, took into account sound and how to utilize it. The Japanese lead is soft spoken YET no one in sound took this into account? GOD GRIEF!)