Be With You

2004 was the year that Japan found itself caught up by the Pure Love or “Junai” phenomenon, thanks mostly to the record-breaking success of Kyoichi Katayama’s novel Crying Out Love From the Centre of the World (Sekai no Chushin de, Ai wo Sakebu), which although wasn’t much of a hit back when it was first published in 2001, was flying off shelves and capturing the hearts of schoolgirls across the country three years later. When Isao Yukisada, one of Japan’s most talented and popular young directors, signed on board to adapt the novel for a big screen release in May of that year, the nation found itself in the grip of “Seka-Chu” fever once again as the film version went on to gross over $81million at the Japanese Box Office. Meanwhile on the small screen the imported Korean drama Winter Sonata (originally produced in 2002) was captivating the hearts of mothers of the Sekachu obsessed schoolgirls, generating an impressive $31million of revenue for TV network NHK.

Production companies found themselves faced with a scary prospect: sentimental tales of young lovers whose relationships were doomed from the start had crossed the generation gap between the nation’s female viewers, becoming a license to print money in both homes and theatres. So to tap into the new frenzy for Junai stories, TV network TBS combined forces with the film production company responsible for Crying out Love: Toho, and grabbed a novel by Ichikawa Takuji to unleash Be With You on the hungry hordes. Unsurprisingly this monumental cash-in was a resounding success; even after being released in the shadow of the Ghibli juggernaut Howl’s Moving Castle, Be With You went on to become the third most popular film at the box office in 2004, grossing almost $50million.


Adding a splash of fantasy to the Pure Love genre, Be With You tells the story of the young Aio family: Takumi, Mio and their six year old son Yuuji, which was tragically torn apart a year prior to the story’s start when Mio died of a long running illness. Father and son are finding it difficult to move on because both harbour the secret belief that they did wrong by Mio in some way. In Yuuji’s case he’s worried that giving birth to him was what made his mother sick, whereas Takumi believes his own sickness (a debilitating motor disease) meant Mio had to make one too many sacrifices to accommodate him as a wife. Both however are hoping to make up for this very soon because Mio promised the couple that a year after her death she would return to spend the Rainy Season with them. With Mio’s promise resonating deep within their hearts, Takumi and Yuuji go out on a walk in the woods as soon as the first downpours of June appear. In the ruins of an old abandoned factory they bump into a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mio Aio – the only problem is she seems to have no memories whatsoever. Nevertheless Takumi and Yuuji bring the woman back to their house and remind her of their former life together, but as Mio starts to fall in love with her husband and son again and her memories begin to slowly return, so too does the rain start to dry up, little by little….

Be With You is the feature film debut of successful TV drama director Nobuhiro Doi, it is also completely funded by TV network Tokyo Broadcasting Systems so it comes as no surprise that there is a distinct lack of inspiration or originality in this feature. Despite having some very slick production values, Be With You’s TV drama (known as Jdorama) roots are all too apparent in its cynically commercial formulism and myriad of derivative plot devices that go absolutely nowhere. If the casting of the most popular actress in Japan right now: Yuko Takeuchi, in a melodrama dealing with the dead coming back to life – the same theme of the 2002 smash hit Yomigaeri (Resurrection) which cemented her status as a major film star in her own right – isn’t enough of a warning that old ground is going to be retread, then you have the fact that by the end of the first act it’s pretty clear that Be With You amounts to little more than a Crying Out Love From the Center of the World clone with ethereal bells and whistles tacked on. While it seems a bit beside the point these days to attack a mainstream popcorner like Be With You for lacking originality, the sheer number of plot devices that add absolutely nothing to the story beyond obvious and pointless tugs at the old heartstrings is much more unforgivable.


Right from the start we are hit with one of the most common staples of recent Jdorama productions: A “present day” framing device which establishes the main story as being set a few years in the past. This completely eliminates any doubt as to how the story is going to turn out without adding anything to the dramatics of the central narrative. The next staple we are introduced to is the old “disabling illness” nutmeg; in this case both the main characters suffer (well in Mio’s case it is purely past tense) from vague improperly developed illnesses that only ever become an issue for them during those pesky lulls in the saccharine melodrama. The viewers haven’t felt sorry for Takumi in the last 15mins or so? Let’s remind them of his tragic motor illness which means he can’t physically exert himself that much without breaking down, that’ll get the hankies out! I’m sure the writers could have come up with a more believable and culturally appropriate reason for why Takumi could have felt like he didn’t deliver the goods as a husband when Mio was alive. With these two clichés established nice and early we then move into what I like to call the “Shunji Iwai” flashback (the narrative is convolutedly set up as flashbacks within flashbacks, within flashbacks) that tells the story of how Takumi and Mio met at school and seemingly never really got along that well at first. I call this one the Shunji Iwai flashback because it is lifted wholesale from his films Love Letter and April Story. These examples are all from the first act of the film, as the story progresses the genre cribbing mounts up and up until you wonder if you’re not just watching some crazy re-enactment of the best moments of Japanese drama of the last ten years.

What really delivers the knockout blow to Be With You though is the distinct lack of passion with which the story unfolds. Aside from the visual poetry of its cinematography, Crying Out Love worked as a shamelessly sentimental weepy because you couldn’t help but feel the acute heartache of its protagonist, a middle aged man who couldn’t forget the bittersweet memory of his tragic first love. Be With You is certainly an attractively shot film, but the main protagonists don’t seem quite so devastated by the loss of Mio at all, in fact for most of the opening act the only thing we have to go on that they’re a bit of a shambles without their matriarch is the fact that Taku is a little unorganised and the house is a bit of a mess – not exactly high tragedy. Part of the reason for their apparent apathy is that Takumi and Yuuji already believe Mio is returning to them very soon, so have never really let the reality of a life without her sink in, which of course is essentially the motivation for their character development; that by the end father and son can see off Mio with no regrets. I really cannot say I cared one bit though, plus the final act of the film switches tone on such a ludicrous twist (again taken straight from another famous Asian romantic drama) that you begin to wonder if Doi and his writers were ever interested in Takumi & Yuuji’s emotional maturity either themselves. Less gimmicks and more emotional resonance could’ve made all the difference to this story.


So what we’re left is a somewhat inoffensive film that never really hits any dramatic high notes, yet despite the rather un-involving nature of the main characters, the blame can’t really be rested on its cast. In fact on the contrary, Nobuhiro Doi assembled a talented young cast for this production. For a six year old, Akashi Takei puts in a remarkably assured performance as Yuuji, who occasionally falls into the category of clichéd precocious youngster. Akashi helps reign the character in a little but understandably doesn’t fully get to grips with the internal conflicts of the character, which are perhaps a little too deep for someone his age to fully grasp. Former Kabuki actor Shido Nakamura is best known to western viewers as the antagonistic slap-headed Table Tennis competitor Dragon in Fumihiko Sori’s Ping Pong, so to see him play a useless unassuming wet lettuce like Takumi Aoi might come as quite a shock to some viewers but Shido’s proven himself to be quite an effective chameleonic character actor in his relatively short film career. In Be With You he puts in a fine, inoffensive performance and captures the inherently gentle core of the character quite well, there isn’t really a tremendous amount to Takumi for him to sink his teeth into here though. Yuko Takeuchi is likewise stuck with a rather one-dimensionally nice character, but if ever there was an actress in Japan who excels at playing sickeningly nice and wholesome characters then it’s her. There’s always an endearingly naïve vulnerability about Yuko’s performances that fits right in with her character here, add to this the fact she’s also extremely easy on the eye and it’s not particularly difficult to see why Takumi and Yuuji’s world revolved so much around Mio. The chemistry between her and Shido is also pretty good, although you’d be hard pressed to tell that the two were falling in love off-screen as well as on, they’re even expecting their first child soon.

Jennifer Garner’s film company Vandalia Films have taken up production duties on Warner Bros’ 2006 remake of Be With You, casting the overacting action babe in the central role of Mio Aio. Ordinarily I would treat news of a US remake with a certain level of reticence, but in Be With You’s case I can’t really see how the US can make the story any more bland and formulaic than it already is. If you’ve not had much experience with Asian melodramas then the film’s inoffensive, quaint charm and slick production values could prove to be a winner for you. If however you’ve seen far superior productions like Love Letter & Crying Out Love From the Center of the World then you really need to lower your expectations before checking out this new entry to the Japanese “pure love” boom.

Presentation

Asia Video Publishing have decided to really pimp Be With You out to HK customers by offering no less than three different DVD releases of the film. The most expensive is the super-fancy bells & whistles Limited Special Edition which offers plenty of cosmetic additions and then you have two SE releases whose only differences lie in their covers: Sunflower Cover SE and White Cover SE (which this review is taken from).

Presented anamorphically at 1.84:1 Be With You has been graced with an excellent film-like transfer that has the distinct whiff of a r2j port. Unlike most HK releases there’s a healthy mixture of visible film grain and very natural contrast levels free from any clipping. The image is bright and very colourful with no bleed and accurate skintones, whilst detail levels are suitably pleasing with only very minimal Edge Enhancements being employed infrequently throughout. Video compression is also suitably strong but given the grainy visuals of Be With You there are one or two moments when digital noise intrudes into the image.


Surprisingly for a HK release of a contemporary Japanese Box Office juggernaut there isn’t a Cantonese dub available for Be With You, so instead HK viewers have to make do with the simple choice of Japanese DD5.1 or DTS5.1, a choice made even simpler by the fact that the Dolby Digital track is a clipped down a smidgen to 384kbps track. For the purpose of this review I listened primarily to the DTS soundtrack, which features a surprising amount of activity from the rear-speakers for a film of this type. The audio quality of the track is very nice, dialogue is loud and clear, bass is rich and full and dynamics are excellent, breathing life into Suguru Matsutani’s repetitive but pleasant score. In comparison the DD5.1 track is much more restrained but still delivers an effective sonic experience.

Optional English subtitles are included, with no spelling or grammatical errors that I can recall.

Extras

All you’ll find on the feature disc is a non-anamorphic Theatrical Trailer presented at 1.80:1. Slap in disc two and you’re confronted with two featurettes:

Making Of: This is little more than 20mins of candid production footage from various scenes in the film and the occasional brief behind the scenes snap of the cast and crew mucking about. It’s all quite dull really and is almost devoid of dialogue (what dialogue there is mostly inaudible), so the lack of English subs isn’t really an issue.


Bonus Features: Somewhat ironically named really as this is the main featurette on disc 2, although for the most part it’s just more of the same from the Making Of. Clocking in at just over 40mins, we're treated to more behind the scene footage, only this time set to music from the main feature. Interspersed throughout are short snippets from the director plus cast interviews that appear to have been taken from three publicity events: On-set interviews, pre-wrap press party, and the film’s premiere. Unfortunately only optional Chinese subtitles are included, but in truth there’s probably less than ten minutes worth of dialogue to subtitle anyway.

Overall

If your exposure to Asian melodramas has been rather limited then Be With You could well be worth your time because it does have rather nice production values, charming performances and plenty of sappy hanky wringing moments to please most mainstream audiences. If however you’re like me and have seen your fair share of romantic dramas, you have been warned that this film is highly uninspired. Having not come across any of Asia Video Publishing’s DVD releases before I had no expectations of high quality, but I have to say they’ve done an excellent job with this release by providing strong audio & video for the main feature and slapping just over one hour’s worth of extras on a separate disc (even if the featurettes are a bit dull).

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