There are many great films out there with exciting, tragic, deep, sappy, or perfect love stories. Rent all of them before getting to this one. The movie mostly plods until the last 30 minutes at which time it sinks like a rock due to plot, acting, and most of all direction. Without spoiling anything, the female lead (Toni Collette) behaves during these final scenes in a truly inexplicable manner, given the movies climax. And in the climax scene Collette does nothing sensibly and instead panics and acts out in a manner that is really uncomfortable and embarrassing to watch. Once the film peaks these last 30 minutes could be condensed easily into about 7, and one is left to think that perhaps they didn't shoot enough good footage to get to the end of the story. The edits thus become extremely long, the emotions excessive and repetitive, and the plot simply becomes either irritating or unbelievable. This film should be about the characters transformation through their love for each other, but in the end there is exactly nothing that changes in either of them, except that we completely lose empathy for Collette's character at the moment we should be weeping with her. There seems to be some attempt -- purposeful or accidental -- to make "Lost in Translation" here. That is a great film and I suggest you watch it two or three times before renting Japanese Story. Maybe you won't have to.