Star Rating:

Journey To The Shore

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Actors: Tadanobu Asano, Eri Fukatsu, Masaaki Akahori

Release Date: Friday 20th May 2016

Genre(s): Drama

Running time: 127 minutes

There is a good idea at the heart of Journey To The Shore but any involvement in this adaptation of Kazumi Yamoto’s novel by Kiyoshi Kursosawa is hampered by the glacial pace and the flat tone.

Piano teacher Mizuki (Fukatsu) has been trying to put her life back together ever since her sailor husband Yasuke (Asano) was lost at sea three years ago and the last thing she was expecting was him to turn up, a little hungry. He informs her that he died at sea and is body currently lies at the bottom of the ocean, lunch for crabs. He invites her to come with him and meet the kind people who helped him make his unlikely journey back. As they make their way to the shore they encounter people – some dead, some grieving – and help them learn how to put their personal tragedy behind them and move on…

Journey To The Shore can be very touching. The Ghost And Mrs. Muir matter of factness ("Oh, you’re a ghost then… Would you like some soup?") may dominate and there are some quirky moments (a wake for a computer that’s finally gone kaput) but every now and then Kurosawa stumbles into a heart-rendering scene; at one point Mizuki meets the deceased daughter of restaurant owning couple (Nozomi Muraoka and Tetsuya Chiba) whom the mother confesses to 'talking to' once in a while.

Despite the conversations of death and grief and what it all means in the grand scheme of things, there's a lack of sense of the central marriage and how it ticked (there is a hint of infidelity along the way), and who Mizuki and Yasuke are as people; it's not as if Kurosawa had time to explore them in depth because the story boasts relentless momentum. The film drags with scenes taking an eternity to get to the point. The score too jars, as if it’s playing to a particularly melodramatic soap opera.

But if you can stick it out there is a lovely climactic scene with Kurosawa refusing to get too mushy about things.