Title: Sekai no chuushin de, Ai wo sakebu / 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ
Rating: 7 / 10
Recommended for:
For those who like pure love stories and are fans of the cast especially Oosawa Takao and Nagasawa Masami
* Potential spoilers ahead!
* I have not read the original novel.
* I have watched the drama version starring Ayase Haruka & Yamada Takayuki.
Liked:
- While I do know of this movie from 21 years ago being such a huge hit back then and am familiar with the story since I did watch the drama version also from 2004, I never thought of watching this until I came across the MV of "Hitomi wo tojite" by Hirai Ken and was reminded of the fact that Oosawa was the lead. And so, since I'm on a Oosawa high these days, there was no longer a reason for me to skip this despite my reluctance to watch pure love stories.
The thing is, the drama version seemed more tilted towards the high school arc rather than the adult arc so I hardly remember what happened in the latter timeline. On the other hand, the movie tried to shuttle between both timelines repeatedly which I felt was a bit easier for me to stomach the film which was close to 2 hours and 20 minutes long. It also helped that Oosawa was featured very prominently in the adult arc. In particular, I really liked the nostalgia factor from the high school arc such as cassette tapes, song dedications on radio shows and the Walkman which were things from my childhood.
- Nagasawa Masami's acting was simply fantastic for a newbie which definitely explains why she won so many awards for her performance here. Especially in the scenes featuring her voice only in the tape recordings, there was so much emotion conveyed from those scenes despite not seeing her facial expressions or body language. If you are a fan of hers, you will definitely want to watch her in this movie. Her chemistry with Moriyama Mirai was also good, be it the lovey-dovey or the sad parts.
Disliked:
- This is more of my personal view towards Saku (Oosawa) as an adult because his behaviour bothered me quite a lot. He was supposed to search for his missing fiancee Ritsuko (Shibasaki Kou) who had gone to his hometown without a word but seeing him being so caught up with his past emotions pining for a long-gone first love, I don't know how Ritsuko could still stomach this and go to Australia with him to visit the place that he and his first love failed to make it to. After realising this fact, I would definitely have wanted to take some time off the relationship and wait for both sides to be ready before moving on (be it together or separately). While some viewers may like this devotion towards Aki shown by Saku, I just couldn't see it in this manner.
- Due to the shuttling between both timelines, the good thing was that it helped to keep the story "fresh" but the transition was sometimes abrupt and awkward. Just when I was getting into the vibe, the scene changed to the other timeline. And it also didn't help that there was too much of the sorrow in the high school arc and too little of the initial lovey-dovey for Saku and Aki so the whole film felt so heavy in the emotional department coupled with the dark atmosphere in the adult arc. Not the type of movie you would want to watch when you aren't in the best of moods.
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