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Title: a disappointment
Review: I decided to watch this film in part because I'm a big fan of Japanese film, in part because it features two of my favorite actors, and in part because of the extremely positive reviews here on amazon. The film started out well with an interesting animation sequence, but as it progressed it turned into a cinematic version of a supermarket trash romance novel, only with a less engaging plot and a "mystery" of very little interest. I love slow-moving stories, but here the story is so thin I found myself dying to hit the fast-forward button to speed things along. The cinematography and effects are "beautiful" only in a cliched, soft-focus, daytime TV kind of way. This soap-opera-esque melodrama is dull and embarrassing. There are so many great Japanese films out there . . . try something else!
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