Something about this movie made me fall in love the moment it started. Maybe it's because I knew Kubozuka Yousuke would do well. Just google his name, check out his filmography, scroll through his photos and admire how not only gorgeous this man is, but how eclectic his portfolio is, to me. He has this cross between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Johnny Depp, possibly Heath Ledger. I love it. One of my top Japanese actors.
Although I've always loved escaping into and being inspired by all types of East Asian culture, Laundry started off a passion for Japanese film for me, and it's been almost a year since I discovered it, and started a collection of Asian films that holds probably over 100 movies now. This is one of the top films in my prized possession.
People say this film is slow. No it's not. It's kind of traditional in Japanese film to take its time, so to develop general patience with films from the viewers and sure to follow genuine appreciation. He was so adorable in this, and so different from his performance in two other films I had seen, one before and one after Laundry. He played a tough though professional guy in one and a street smart thug in the other, yet a soft, precocious, endearing differently-abled young man here. So cool.
I loved the leading lady who plays his girlfriend here! So pretty and with a similar personality of her other character in Pulse, a classic Japanese horror film. She was kind of emotionless, invested with her time in a relationship, but at face value not her mind or heart or affection. It symbolises the struggles of the character the viewer will later learn. Basically...she's lonely.
At the start it wasn't a relationship, however. It was a chance meeting, at a laundry place where Teru works, during a pivotal moment in the woman's life, post-breakup and struggling with depression and insomnia, hence the pills she takes. They get stuck with one another because he won't leave her alone, but as she's lonely, she doesn't stop him. They soon wind up inheriting a mutual friend's home when he leaves Japan to find love, and there is where their relationship begins. I feel comfortable calling it a relationship at this point.
The only thing I don't get is the need for Teru to be mentally challenged. His struggles take up 99% of the film so perhaps without his challenges there wouldn't be a film? I don't mind him being mentally challenged I just want to see the connection between that and the girl being depressed. What's the significance, or is it just an excuse to make a quirky film? Like a relaxed Benny and Joon? But even without his mental struggles--which really just boil down to him habitually rubbing his nose, saying inappropriately honest things that the girl and their friend learn to appreciate, and being absent-minded, however not unintelligent in the slightest--still the story would be so sweet just from the girl's perspective, being so sad and then finding someone. Perhaps it's a touch of dark humour? That someone so depressed would find love with a mentally challenged person and not too much fight this happening to them? Yet it made me still so happy for her and sad for myself at the same time that I cried more than I have for a film recently. They didn't need a huge ship sinking or a notebook disappearing to make a great love story here.
There isn't any part in the film I'd fast forward. I do that even with like Harry Potter, one of my favourite films, and adventurous, presumably always something cool, but alone, I tend to skip to my favourite parts of already seen films if I feel the parts being skipped aren't essential to enjoying or understanding it. With Laundry, again and again, I sit through it, and there are so many heart touching, heart warming moments, I literally shed buckets of tears at the end after some moments of wet eyes during the film.
Although I've always loved escaping into and being inspired by all types of East Asian culture, Laundry started off a passion for Japanese film for me, and it's been almost a year since I discovered it, and started a collection of Asian films that holds probably over 100 movies now. This is one of the top films in my prized possession.
People say this film is slow. No it's not. It's kind of traditional in Japanese film to take its time, so to develop general patience with films from the viewers and sure to follow genuine appreciation. He was so adorable in this, and so different from his performance in two other films I had seen, one before and one after Laundry. He played a tough though professional guy in one and a street smart thug in the other, yet a soft, precocious, endearing differently-abled young man here. So cool.
I loved the leading lady who plays his girlfriend here! So pretty and with a similar personality of her other character in Pulse, a classic Japanese horror film. She was kind of emotionless, invested with her time in a relationship, but at face value not her mind or heart or affection. It symbolises the struggles of the character the viewer will later learn. Basically...she's lonely.
At the start it wasn't a relationship, however. It was a chance meeting, at a laundry place where Teru works, during a pivotal moment in the woman's life, post-breakup and struggling with depression and insomnia, hence the pills she takes. They get stuck with one another because he won't leave her alone, but as she's lonely, she doesn't stop him. They soon wind up inheriting a mutual friend's home when he leaves Japan to find love, and there is where their relationship begins. I feel comfortable calling it a relationship at this point.
The only thing I don't get is the need for Teru to be mentally challenged. His struggles take up 99% of the film so perhaps without his challenges there wouldn't be a film? I don't mind him being mentally challenged I just want to see the connection between that and the girl being depressed. What's the significance, or is it just an excuse to make a quirky film? Like a relaxed Benny and Joon? But even without his mental struggles--which really just boil down to him habitually rubbing his nose, saying inappropriately honest things that the girl and their friend learn to appreciate, and being absent-minded, however not unintelligent in the slightest--still the story would be so sweet just from the girl's perspective, being so sad and then finding someone. Perhaps it's a touch of dark humour? That someone so depressed would find love with a mentally challenged person and not too much fight this happening to them? Yet it made me still so happy for her and sad for myself at the same time that I cried more than I have for a film recently. They didn't need a huge ship sinking or a notebook disappearing to make a great love story here.
There isn't any part in the film I'd fast forward. I do that even with like Harry Potter, one of my favourite films, and adventurous, presumably always something cool, but alone, I tend to skip to my favourite parts of already seen films if I feel the parts being skipped aren't essential to enjoying or understanding it. With Laundry, again and again, I sit through it, and there are so many heart touching, heart warming moments, I literally shed buckets of tears at the end after some moments of wet eyes during the film.