Lost Paradise

A box office sensation in Japan, the adult love story "Lost Paradise" will have a more difficult time achieving international popularity. While its premise of an impossible love strikes a universal chord, there are untranslatable cultural components that soften the pic's emotional impact. Nonetheless, the combination of high drama, strong performances and professional sheen bodes

A box office sensation in Japan, the adult love story "Lost Paradise" will have a more difficult time achieving international popularity. While its premise of an impossible love strikes a universal chord, there are untranslatable cultural components that soften the pic's emotional impact. Nonetheless, the combination of high drama, strong performances and professional sheen bodes well for art situations; overall commercial prospects are good but well short of breakout status. Kuki (Koji Yakusho), a vet newsman shuffled off to a book-development branch, finds escape through an illicit relationship with Rinko (Hitomi Kuroki). Together they find the passion and compatibility that have long since dissipated in their bloodless marriages. Although circumspect in public, they are unbridled whenever they can steal away for a rendezvous.Any obstacles to their happiness appear to be readily resolved. Neither is saddled with obligations to children, nor do their spouses, when ultimately confronted, demonstrate a resistance to divorce. One suspects an implicit social barrier, which fails to translate for Westerners.

Tomomi Tsutsui’s script isn’t at all helpful in providing more than cursory detail about their mates or their marital dilemmas. Kuki’s wife is portrayed as decent, if a low-voltage personality. Rinko’s husband comes off, all too obviously, as insensitive and short-tempered.

Yakusho — who also scored a critical success in Cannes Palme d’Or winner “The Eel” — gives an enormously sympathetic performance. It’s a well-textured interpretation, conveying the character’s decency and despair. Kuroki doesn’t quite have a role to match his, but is believable in getting across Rinko’s vulnerability and the solace the union provides.

In this smoothly crafted piece, director Yoshimitsu Morita strikingly conveys lives of quiet desperation, assisted by the stark images of d.p. Hiroshi Takase and a haunting music track from Michiru Oshima. The film comes across as an emotional tour de force despite a script that demands a leap of logic most viewers outside Japan will find difficult to take.

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Lost Paradise

Japanese

  • Production: An Alliance (Canada) release of an Ace Pictures presentation of a Kadokawa Shoten production. (International sales: Toei Co., Tokyo.) Produced by Masato Hara. Executive producer, Tsuguhiko Kadokawa. Directed by Yoshimitsu Morita. Screenplay, Tomomi Tsutsui, based on the novel by Watanabe Junichi
  • Crew: Camera (color), Hiroshi Takase; editor, Shinji Tanaka; music, Michiru Oshima; art direction, Hidetaka Ozawa; sound (Dolby SR), Fumio Hashimoto. Reviewed at World Film Festival, Montreal (competing), Aug. 31, 1997. Running time: 119 MIN.
  • With: Shoichiro Kuki ..... Koji Yakusho Rinko Matsubara ..... Hitomi Kuroki Kinugawa ..... Akira Terao Haruhiko Matsubara ..... Toshio Shiba Fumie Kuki ..... Tomoko Hoshino Midori ..... Kumiko Kim Chika ..... Yoshino Kimura

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