I guess I must be shallow, thick and slow. Notwithstanding all the hype around this movie I have so far failed to like it much.

I suppose that for those who haven't been to Japan very often & consider it as an exotic or even "closed" country (and, hence, who may be stuck in the pre-Meiji era...) there's a fair bit of fairytale in the story. I, however, tend to see the plot in terms of the following two meandering storylines:

1) Has-been actor experiences a pang of (post-)midlife crisis in Tokyo. Lonely delectable young abandoned wife hooks up with him. The two are emotionally attracted to each other, but the impermissibilty of a sexual encounter keeps them back. Instead, they live out a few days of Freudian father-daughter infatuation.

2) Japan is such a strange and wonderful country!!! 1 1/2 hours of tourist tour of the idiosyncracies of Japanese social life, complete with karaoke bars, game consoles and the social acceptability of meeting your colleagues in striptease bars.

On the first account - point 1), that is - I guess the film comes our more convincing than American Beauty, but.... it would have been sooOOOO much better if we'd had a couple of good actors to play the lead parts. Imagine, say, they young lady being able to appear a bit emotionally torn? It would have been so much more gratifying that just having to watch her purse her lips and play a sullen teenager.