It's not a Japanese film but 'The Truth', where Kore-eda worked with a French/American cast is also really great. Funny, wise, sad at times and brilliantly directed and performed.
Searching for a reception to this film from this site is like trying to get a message by yelling into deep space- but I’ll laud it anyway as a must watch if you’re prepared to give it a bit of thought afterwards. If director Hakota, Kaho and Shim Eun-Kyung don’t win any directing/acting awards (which will probably be the case, sadly) then the Japanese entertainment industry is even more flawed than one may suspect.
Most of the students' acting was pretty awful, especially the guys. I think only Nagano Mei was good, and I thought…
Agreed- Mister Ryota Katayose in particular could've spent a bit less time on dancing and a bit more time on fixing his acting. It's a shame that the Japanese public are actually willing to tolerate such bad performances.
I agree with TimiZero. Looking back on 3-Nen, episodes 1-5 were strong and suspenseful but then it just got bogged down with moral preaching and became highly repetitive, especially with shots of all the students crying. Not to mention some of the students' acting was shoddy. Toumei was poignant from start to end and never softened any blows it dealt.
Hits you right in the kokoro if you've ever witnessed the middle lives of people. The reality and the truth about…
I think you would love 'Nobody Knows'. With regards to Aki, I think she was simply a victim of circumstances; perhaps she really wanted to study in Australia but for some reason or another she wasn't able to. Maybe she didn't want her family to know or worry so she started living away from them and had to become a hostess to make ends meet.
Second episode doesn't improve upon the issues of the first but somehow seems easier to swallow- probably because one becomes used to the characters and their antics. I feel like NN is trying to gravitate between being a hard-boiled detective drama and a farce without succeeding at either of these.
It's probably better to skip over sections where they start trying to be all deep and morally preachy because these just feel contrived and unearned. 3 Nen A Gumi also fell into this trap but it only started to get tedious in the last few episodes- and from the start, it had a socially relevant reason for why it got so preachy. I dislike myself for saying this but they really could've chosen a better child actor.
Interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_am6zYTJFXM
Idol ni naritai -> Super Hero ni naritai -> Director ni naritai
With regards to Aki, I think she was simply a victim of circumstances; perhaps she really wanted to study in Australia but for some reason or another she wasn't able to. Maybe she didn't want her family to know or worry so she started living away from them and had to become a hostess to make ends meet.
It's probably better to skip over sections where they start trying to be all deep and morally preachy because these just feel contrived and unearned. 3 Nen A Gumi also fell into this trap but it only started to get tedious in the last few episodes- and from the start, it had a socially relevant reason for why it got so preachy.
I dislike myself for saying this but they really could've chosen a better child actor.