This farewell film by director Shinji Somai before his death a year later is a meditation about purpose in life and reasons to live it. At its core, Kaze Hana is a road movie, carrying along the usual film-fest stereotypes with a minimal plot and slow character introspection. However, the fluid pacing, brilliant performances by both Tadanobu Asano and 80’s pop idol Kyoko Koizumi and their strong chemistry turn the film into a sweet, quiet ride—albeit one without much substance in the end.
Asano plays Sawaki, a young and prominent son of a government official, with his own cushy job and pretty girlfriend. Koizumi plays Yuriko, a woman in her thirties living an empty life as a “hostess” in a bar known to offer its customers other services. In the beginning of the film, they wake up next to each other in a park, and Sawaki has no recollection of meeting Yuriko any time the previous night.
Yuriko recounts their conversation, which includes Sawaki’s promise to travel north to Hokkaido with her so they can see the mountains while Yuriko visits her family. Disillusioned with the direction of his life, Sawaki reluctantly agrees and they take a little trip in his pink SUV.
The film starts the viewer with as blank a memory as Sawaki, and gradually provides each character’s back-story by sprinkling flashbacks into the road trip in a strange order. We learn that Sawaki was apparently shamed in the newspapers for being caught drunkenly shoplifting a beer (and his life has since been going downhill) and Yuriko’s child is living with her parents in Hokkaido. Unfortunately, these back-stories are rather thin and hardly mentioned in large chunks of the plot, so it never feels like an immediate concern for the viewer. The film’s messages are weakened as a result and it’s difficult for the viewer to take anything away from it.
Most of the film’s merits come from Asano and Koizumi’s endearing friendship and chemistry. Asano does a fine job at portraying Sawaki’s radical changes in personality whenever he drinks heavily—switching from a stern, quiet and reserved individual to a lovable and bumbling drunk. He begins with a sharp contrast between the two, and eases the personas together gradually as the film continues.
Koizumi compliments his performance perfectly, with constant mood swings that always feel real. Their relationship is charmingly innocent as they grow from nearly distant strangers to close friends who get increasingly jealous and concerned about the other. Their moments together are by far the film’s best quality at the risk of others—when Sawaki undergoes change as a result of his relationship, the viewer will be more pleased for the relationship’s sake rather than any concern for Sawaki’s problems.
Somai gives the film a somber mood and an evocative feeling of isolation in his empty nature shots of Hokkaido and understated style, but for all the film’s success in immersing its viewer in the trip, it does not give us much as a souvenir to remember it.
Reviewed by Tarun
