 |
| Matsuyuki Yasuko and Emoto Tasuku |
Just got finished watching the haunting and touching 2007 movie “Shikyu No Kioku~ Koko Ni Anata Ga Iru”, about a young man named Masato (Emoto Tasuku) who goes in search of a woman named Aiko (Matsuyuki Yasuko) whom he believes to be his real mother. Masato was kidnapped from the hospital as an infant, and though the kidnapper was caught and he was returned to his mother after 40 days, in present day as an almost grown 17 year old who is constantly clashing with his mother as a juvenile, he is convinced his real mother is the woman who stole him away all those years ago. After a bitter and violent confrontation with his mother, he leaves in search of Aiko.
Find her he eventually does, in a seaside restaurant on Okinawa, and right off he sees that she is very stand-offish as well as a bit lonely. Though Masato keeps his distance from Aiko at first and just watches her from afar, he strikes up a friendship with Sachiko, the brash and outspoken neighborhood bar owner, who tries to get his a job at the restaurant, though with little success.
Masato manages to get a part-time job as well as room and board by helping Aiko without being asked, one day when she is swamped with customers.
Over the weeks that follow, she opens up to him and they find themselves becoming closer and closer, to the point where it became hard to tell how much their connection is like mother and son and how much is more like sexual attraction. At some point Masato is clear that Aiko isn’t his real mother, but he isn’t sure just WHAT their relationship is.
Speaking of Sexual attraction, I got all hot and turned on when Aiko’s salaciously slutty stepdaughter Mika came onto the scene to cause trouble and shake things up between the two, throughout all of her scenes, she DID look a bit familiar, but I was stunned to find that this gorgeous babe was none other than actress Yuka Nomura, a child actor I loved back in the golden age of J-dramas. Asianwiki says she was in the Snow White Murder Case movie, but gee, I don’t remember her in that? Holy CRAP has this girl grown up!!!
Through Mika’s involvement as well as a few other tragedies that befall them, circumstances force both Masato and Aiko to make decisions about life and what the future holds. Finding strength through each other they choose the paths to take, and though the movie ends on a slightly ambiguous note, it really seems like the right one.
A Solid Movie.
PS: I gotta note how beautiful freaking Yasuko Matsuyuki is in this movie as Aiko. So pretty, yet fragile and vulnerable. Funny how she spent so much of her early career playing these hot to trot women and now seems to play a lot of caring, motherly roles…(though, as Perfect Report shows, she can STILL play a badass if she wants!)
And, Oh My Gosh, the always the delightful Kimiko Yo, the question is not why she always seems to play these kind of tough, sassy and ultra-sexy older women, but why she is so DAMN GOOD at it!! Gotta say that Kimiko stole just about every scene she was in for me, my oh my is this lady fine. (and YES, she's really this tan and orangey in this movieLOLOL)
