45/26
Tatsuo and his daughter Haru run the Takano Tofu Store in Onomichi
When Tatsuo learns he is ill, he fears his daughter will be left alone and, unbeknownst to her, sets out to find a suitable partner for Haru. The plot could (and already has) filled many a family drama, but here, with the magnetic presence of veteran Tatsuya Fuji (Empire of the Senses),…
Director and screenwriter Mitsuhiro Mihara’s 2023 plaintive father-daughter drama is a bit too obvious to bear comparison with Yasujiro Ozu’s family drama classics
Read all. In a story that focuses on Tatsuo, an aged tofu master in Onomichi, and his exceptionally devoted daughter Haru, Mihara clearly draws on Ozu’s Late Spring and Early Summer to capture the specialness of their close relationship.
The clownish moments felt like a different film than the one intended
The plot drags as everyone eventually finds a potential partner, but not before a requisite number of comedy scenes with stock characters are fairly broadly drawn. Still, screen veteran Tatsuya Fuji plays Tatsuo with dour panache, while Kumiko Aso provides attentive support as Haru.
For a film with a similar sensibility about the artistry behind unique Japanese food, I recommend Naomi Kawase’s 2015 “An (Sweet Bean)”
Fuji’s scenes with Kumi Nakamura as an ailing older woman were touching, though the connections to the atom bomb felt contrived to squeeze more pathos into the film.
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