More Yui and Hiroshi With Aruitemo, Aruitemo (Still Walking)

Yui Natsukawa and Hiroshi Abe in Still Walking

Still riding on a very intense Yui Natsukawa high after falling in love with her in “Kekkon Dekinai Otoko” and was trying to get my hands the 2011 drama  “Shiawase no Kiiroi Hankachi” because it starred both Yui and Hiroshi Abe as a married couple. Well, I still haven’t managed to locate it, but I realized I DID already have a MOVIE starring Hiroshi Abe and Yui Natsukawa as a married couple, the film “Auruitemo, Aruitemo (Still Walking) which I’d been sitting on for years and I immediately dug it up to watch!

 This was one of those laid-back “absorb the atmosphere” kind of flicks, ones that take the time to show random things like an old man walking down a hill or a train clicking across the scenery…and it reminded me not just a little of the terrific Hiroshi Abe/Tomoko Yamaguchi drama “Going My Home”: Same story of a city resident going back to visit his relations in a small old-fashioned town, and once there, sitting back and taking in the slowed down pace on the town. Heck, they even got YOU to play his younger sister in both of them!

I’d originally downloaded this movie at the recommendation of a friend who really likes Hiroshi Abe , Ironically, he never remembers his name, instead calling him “that guy who looks like Rider-Man”. One day he told me, “Hey we saw this Japanese movie with that guy that looks like Rider Man, and it was really good! It’s about this guy who goes back home to visit his family, but he doesn’t get along with his father who thinks he’s good for nothing”. When I looked like I was thinking “That’s it?”,  he added, “eh, there was more to it, but it was more in the way the movie was shown than the story itself.” And how right he was!

 So I got it, but I never got around to checking it out til now (Well, some of  the beginning looks familiar, so I may have watched some of it initially but I don’t remember it)! But that’s okay because I don’t think there’s a better time to be watching it than right now, where I can fully appreciate both Yui and Abe’s acting skills and the way they play off each other! Actually, everyone was really great, such natural and organic scenes which were composed mostly of dialog, GREAT dialog which grew and simmered like real conversations… so realistic, at times if seemed like I was watching a hidden camera video recording of some family’s life!

Watching this has really reinforced my Yui Natsukawa love, man…she was so doggone pretty and delicate in this one, not at all like the tough realist Natsumi Hayakawa, but both really great characters. And of course, no matter who she plays, her characters always have those signature dimples, and in fact, there's a scene where Mother (played excellently by the awesome Kiki Kirin) even comments, "Oh, you have cute dimples!" LOLOL

PS. Was really cool to realize the line “Aruitemo, Aruitemo” used as the title of this movie came from none other than the immensely gorgeous Japan chanteuse Ayumi Ishida’s  song “Blue Light Yokohama”, how cool is THAT!!!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com