Definitely not the feel good film of the year. The dialogue ranges from questionable to downright bad. It even falls prey to the occasional clichéd Hollywood plot device. Yet despite these rough edges, the film is poetic and powerful. We can thank the Japanese for keeping the tragedy afloat in the sea of happy endings from which most films wash up. It also helps that the rough parts are in the middle of the film rather than at the end, during which you’ll probably be staring agape at the screen rather than wondering whether the it was the screen writer or the translator that was responsible for the choppy dialogue.