As I know some Filipinas both in business and private, the motif of the film is what I can not miss. There were many scenes I was empathized. Still, I hesitate to rate it higher than 6.
There are two couples in this movie. One is a farmer of a small village in north-eastern Japan, Yokoyama Syoichi (acted by Suzuki Masayuki), and his Filipina wife, Fey (Ruby Moreno). Bringing brides from the Philippine was an official initiative of the village, which suffers from depopulation because the hard work and severe climate did not attract Japanese women. When the initiatives began it had nation wide attention, and now it is popular to have brides from SE Asian countries.
Yokoyama is a good man, honest and hard-working. But he is too introvert; has no experience of courting a girl. Though he joined the initiative, went to the Philippines, and had paid 3m yen for the arrangement, he did not know how to treat her as his partner. For Fey, he is a man whom she can not know what he is thinking about, and her life is no more than a hard work and sex to make descendants. Finally she flees from him. Still, Yokoyama does not understand that he has its reason.
Another couple is a man whose boy was killed, Kokubu Ryoichi (Sano Shiro), and the victimizer's sister, Asami (Togawa Jun). Both families had broken down due to the incident, and this peculiar background has got them together. Kokubu is a professor, but for this peculiar life the couple is a minority, living in a small apartment house in the street of immigrants. They deeply sympathize Fey, and become her true friends. Through conversations with them, Fey can express her real feeling on her life and Japanese.
But, while the situation of Kokubu and Asami is set so peculiar, the changes happened in Fey and Yokoyama are not expressed well. Why and how Yokoyama decided to take action to resume the relationship with Fey? This question is not answered well. What is worse, at the ending scene, the most important line of Yokoyama is hard to make out. He needs effort to even say "Fey", perhaps he had not even called his wife by name until then. What does he say next? I replayed the tape several times but could not make it. It is even possible to guess that he went to Manila because the single life was so inconvenient but he had no way to find a woman other than Fey. I was left puzzled on the real reason why Fey tears...
By the way, there is another important character in the movie: Wang, a Chinese man who runs a Chinese restaurant at Okubo-dori, the street famous of expatriates. He is the man who takes care of Fey by giving place to work and sleep, and introduced her to Asami. But what he thinks about Fey, and why he is so kind to her are not shown.
There are two couples in this movie. One is a farmer of a small village in north-eastern Japan, Yokoyama Syoichi (acted by Suzuki Masayuki), and his Filipina wife, Fey (Ruby Moreno). Bringing brides from the Philippine was an official initiative of the village, which suffers from depopulation because the hard work and severe climate did not attract Japanese women. When the initiatives began it had nation wide attention, and now it is popular to have brides from SE Asian countries.
Yokoyama is a good man, honest and hard-working. But he is too introvert; has no experience of courting a girl. Though he joined the initiative, went to the Philippines, and had paid 3m yen for the arrangement, he did not know how to treat her as his partner. For Fey, he is a man whom she can not know what he is thinking about, and her life is no more than a hard work and sex to make descendants. Finally she flees from him. Still, Yokoyama does not understand that he has its reason.
Another couple is a man whose boy was killed, Kokubu Ryoichi (Sano Shiro), and the victimizer's sister, Asami (Togawa Jun). Both families had broken down due to the incident, and this peculiar background has got them together. Kokubu is a professor, but for this peculiar life the couple is a minority, living in a small apartment house in the street of immigrants. They deeply sympathize Fey, and become her true friends. Through conversations with them, Fey can express her real feeling on her life and Japanese.
But, while the situation of Kokubu and Asami is set so peculiar, the changes happened in Fey and Yokoyama are not expressed well. Why and how Yokoyama decided to take action to resume the relationship with Fey? This question is not answered well. What is worse, at the ending scene, the most important line of Yokoyama is hard to make out. He needs effort to even say "Fey", perhaps he had not even called his wife by name until then. What does he say next? I replayed the tape several times but could not make it. It is even possible to guess that he went to Manila because the single life was so inconvenient but he had no way to find a woman other than Fey. I was left puzzled on the real reason why Fey tears...
By the way, there is another important character in the movie: Wang, a Chinese man who runs a Chinese restaurant at Okubo-dori, the street famous of expatriates. He is the man who takes care of Fey by giving place to work and sleep, and introduced her to Asami. But what he thinks about Fey, and why he is so kind to her are not shown.