Yomigaeri (2002) User Reviews

Fascinating magical fantasy with an unwanted J-Pop concert

[ChungMo · 6/10 · 19 June 2006]

A genre that seems only to work coming out of Japan. The magical fantasy is better known in the US thru Miyazaki's animations such as "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Sprited Away". The subject is usually ordinary people encountering wondrous happenings that have a deeper spiritual meaning. This film is a live action entry in the genre and it succeeds for the most part. American equivalents are films like "Magnolia" or "Big Fish".

In a small town dead people start to reappear just as they were right before they died minus any disfigurement that may have been a result of the circumstances of their death. A young bureaucrat is sent to investigate. By coincidence he grew up in the town and he meets his childhood friend, a woman who married his best male friend. Several families who have dead loved ones return are featured in the drama.

The actors are almost all very good and they put across the emotional turmoil caused by the reappearance of their loved ones. The movie moves forward in a deliberate yet sometimes non-linear manner. The photography is excellent and very natural. I would have given the movie 9 stars if not for something that ruined the mood for me. For such a well written and sincere film, I wonder who came up with the idea of creating a pop group for the film and centering the climax around a concert. Nothing in the film has anything to do with a concert. As soon as the concert starts the drama film turns into a concert film. One song was passable, two songs is an understandable mistake, three songs ruined it for me. The excuse for having the group in the film is flimsy at best. If you like J-Pop perhaps your opinion will be different, I just wished I could have seen a version of this film without the concert.

Excellent fantasy, heed my warning about the concert but watch it anyway.

What would happen if the dead did come back

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 8 January 2008]

This is NOT a horror film. When a decades long missing boy returns to his mother a ministry official is sent to investigate. Soon more dead people begin to return to their loved ones.

What is the nature of longing, of human needs and of mourning. What would you do if that person you've missed finally came back? These are some of the questions that this intriguing movie raises.

Sentimental.touching. heartwarming, harrowing, contrived and yet completely and almost compulsively watchable. Think of it as something similar to Field of Dreams but not just for guys, or going into that purely sentimental direction.

This is a one of a kind film that really should be seen

Very nice story, but a bit too sentimental

[Alex Klotz · 7/10 · 25 November 2003]

This is actually a very nice movie with good actors, a very imaginative plot and some great cinematography. But the extremely melodramatic music made some scenes almost impossible for me to take them serious, although this definitely is a serious movie about love and death. A bit more humor would have helped to increase the overall impression, though.

The most touching film I've ever seen.

[lars7774 · 10/10 · 28 June 2005]

I absolutely LOVED this movie! The stories (and there are several in the film) are not only (dare I say it?) heartwarming, but some have twists I didn't see coming. A story of love and the different meanings of "resurrection", YOMIGAERI strikes me as nothing less than a Japanese Spielberg film--complete with soaring John Williams-like score. There are also a couple of pop songs that are actually relevant to the plot. I'm sure there are those who consider this movie hopelessly sentimental, but it's an honest sentimentality that only the Japanese seem to be able to pull off. (See AFTER LIFE and SHALL WE DANCE?--if you haven't already--to see what I mean.)

A Great Movie

[flatron · 9/10 · 29 November 2003]

The dead were here because they wanted to let the alive know the meaning of their lives. When they went away, everyone found themselves a new way to live on. Yomigaeri just shows these all.

The child lost in the wood, the wife died from pregnancy, the school student who suicided himself......those we missed so much suddenly came in reality. They dug out the emotion that we didn't pay attention to or were ashamed to express, and the feeling was so precious now.

The flame of love between the leading actor and actress finally appeared. If they didn't experience this event, they probably lost each other. Love is of great power, especially in front of death. Although the time to be with each other was short and farewell was at hand, it was enough.

Made me cry, constantly

[damo65-1 · 23 April 2004]

Maybe it was the physical situation I was in, strapped into a bucking 'plane, on my way from my loving family to a family reunion, but this made me cry non-stop. I watched this in total darkness, straining to read the subtitles off a tiny in 'plane "entertainment unit". My brother, sitting next to me, without any of the emotional baggage (his "family" is less "loving" than mine!) kept asking me what was the matter! The twists and turns in the storyline should reward the most demanding mystery fan. The power and passion in the love story should satisfy the most romantic. I watched this three times in four flights, and it gave me everything I needed, every time I watched it. Now I've just got to convince a local company to provide me with a DVD!!

Take two

[harry_tk_yung · 14 June 2005]

I bought the DVD of Yomigaeri entirely because of Takeuchi Yuko ("Be with you", "Heaven's bookstore"), whose smile is guaranteed to brighten up any miserable day. I then discovered that the director is Shiota Akihiko, who made the controversial but most interesting Moonlight Whisper. Yomigaeri is not in the least controversial, but equally interesting.

The title "Resurrection" tells a little, but not everything, about the movie – a scary ghost tale? a clever hoax? a science fiction yarn? Interesting that the genre in which IMDb placed this movie is "Fantasy". If I were to choose, I would say "romance".

The movie starts with a bit of a red herring, with the first two resurrection scenes (the pop musician couple and the little boy) looking like the beginning of scary ghost stories. The mood soon shifts to science fiction, with an investigation team showing up and cases becoming commonplace. Before we get to the middle of the movie, however, we realize that the focus is really on the human stories, with human dramas unfolding.

The resurrections are on deaths ranging from a long time ago to very recent. On the one hand, we see the little kid coming back to a mother who is now over 80, a mother coming back to a daughter who is now about her own age (i.e. when she died of childbirth) and a teenager coming back to an adult younger brother. On the other hand, we have a husband who died only three years ago, and even a high school student walking right into his own funeral.

As we follow these various stories, we see that it is not all rejoices, as people, both those coming back from death and their beloved ones and friends, find it awkward, and even painful, to cope with the change. There is also a clever twist, about two third into the movie, which you would recognize as soon as you see it.

The movie is beautifully shot, both in the literal visual sense and in its being tender and touching. The premises are interesting, and quite well tackled even though not in great depth. As there are quite a few stories and many characters, the stars Takeuchi Yuko and Kusanagi Tsuyoshi (of SMAP, Japan's most popular boy-band) do not get the screen time all to themselves. Still, we see a reasonable amount of them, and they are beautiful, individually as well as together.