Hana (Screen Daily Review)

[dleedlee]

Hana

Dan Fainaru in Toronto 10 September 2006

Dir: Hirokazu Kore-Eda. Jap. 2006. 127mins.

Rambling, overlong and at times even messy, Hana is nevertheless a delightful surprise from well known Japanese director Hirokazu Kor-Eda. Always identified in the past with slow, reflective, sad pieces such as Maborosi and philosophical reflections on human existence like Afterlife - not to mention the heartbreaking Nobody Knows, one of the most moving and desperate films of recent times - Kore-Eda here comes up with a gentle, chiding, humanistic samurai picture; though the description may be a contradiction in terms, this is exactly the secret of its charm.

Nicely shot and spiritedly acted by a large ensemble, featuring among others, such well known Nippon stars as Junichi Okada and Tadanobu Asano, Hana is ideal festival fodder after its Toronto premiere – it also travels to San Sebastian among others - and solid arthouse fare.

Embroidering his ensemble piece around one of the best known legends of honour and revenge in Japanese tradition, The 47 Ronin, Kore-Eda goes out on a limb, trying something he has never done before: a historical costume romp set in the early 18th century, an era of relative tranquility in Japan. All of the interwoven plots are placed in a shantytown not unlike Akira Kurosawa's in Dodeskaden or de Sica's in Miracle In Milan and Kore-Eda’s lead is a samurai, hopeless with a sword but great at running away from danger.

He is surrounded by a gallery of colorful characters, and though the stories have their dramatic, sad moments, the prevalent mood, at all times, is light. This does not mean Kore-Eda is any less earnest, and his perceptions any less refined, than they were in his earlier films. Though it is certainly not an actual metaphor of the world today, Hana condemns the concept of hate transmitted by inheritance, in whatever shape and form, and goes a long way to ensure the audience does not miss his anti-violence messages.

After his father's murder, Soza (Junichi Okada) is dispatched by his family to go to Edo (the ancient name for Tokyo), find the culprit and avenge the death. Soza, however, who knows everything about the codes and obligations of the samurai - but lacks any practice whatsoever in the art of war - pretends to ignore his paradoxical position. Instead he dreamily announces, that in case he is defeated by his enemy, he will nobly take his own life, the fitting gesture recommended by the samurai code in such circumstances.

In the meantime, he has lodged for the last three years, at the expense of his family, in a ramshackle hut in the city's poorest slum, teaching the children to read and write, with a few adults joining in the lessons once in a while. It is there that he finally finds the person who killed his father, now a humble porter (Tadanobu Asano) living with a widow and her child.

In the midst of all this misery - the landlord who is rarely paid is threatening to tear the whole place down - Kore-Eda puts together an assembly of penniless destitutes with a tremendous drive for life, a richly human congregation which recalls another one of Kurosawa's classics, The Lower Depths. They may have nothing of their own, not even privacy, but no one can take away their dreams, or as Kore-Eda's script puts it here, "to turn s**t into rice cakes".

Among them there is Sada (Arata Furuda), a friend who eats and drinks on Soza's expense and keeps promising to produce his father's murderer but never does; Osae (Rie Miyazawa) a married woman waiting for her husband's return in the company of her son; and Sode (Ryo Kase), a tough guy who doesn't believe in war codes but has no problems with war as such.

In addition, in the background, some of the revenge-seeking 47 samurai are hiding in the same dilapidated tenement, biding their time until the right moment comes to punish the man who caused their master's death.

While Soza is always kept in the forefront, and his personal moral conflicts often directly affect the lives of the others, Kore-Eda remains close to the ensemble nature of his script, allowing the rest of the characters to fully develop on their own.

Junichi Okada has just the type of innocent look in his eyes that Soza should have, while Rie Miyazawa's features have the clean purity revered in Japanese beauty. Meanwhile Asano's forceful presence lends weight to a role that otherwise is mostly silent, and Furuta plays the hero's resourceful best friend with a relish. Among the supporting parts, Susumu Terajima's hesitant samurai proves touching. The children - and there are quite a few of them in the film - steal the show every time they come on.

Admirable production design (Toshihiro Isomi worked with Kore-Eda on Afterlife) provided a location that could exist 300 years ago, yet has the strangely familiar shape of similar contemporary poverty stricken areas, whether in South East Asia, Africa or Latin America, lending the film a strangely updated tone that the script itself never tries to enforce.

Alert camera keeps moving around, usually registering reactions before noticing the actions themselves, and if there is a problem with the editing, it may be because Kore-Eda the editor has indulged too much Kore-Eda the director, whom he should have treated with just a little bit less consideration.

Production companies/backers
Shochiku
Engine Film
TV Man Union
Bandai Visual
Eisei Gejiko
Storm

International sales
Shochiku

Producers
Shiho Sato
Nozomu Enoki

Cinematography
Yutaka Yamazaki

Editor
Hirokazu Kore-Eda

Production design
Toshihiro Isomi
Masao Banba

Sound
Yutaka Tsurumaki

Main cast
Junichi Okada
Rie Miyazawa
Tadanobu Asano
Arata Furuta
Teruyuki Kagawa
Susumu Terajima
Siji Chihara
Ryuhei Ueshima
Yoichi Kimura
Tomoko Tabata