Walking My Life

Zo no senaka (Japan)

A Shochiku Co. presentation of a Zo No Senaka Film Partners production. (International sales: Shochiku Co., Tokyo.) Produced by Shohei Kotaki, Michihiko Umezawa, Kazutaka Akimoto, Hirofumi Ogoshi, Nobuyuki Tohya. Directed by Satoshi Isaka. Screenplay, Satsuo Endo, based on a novel by Yasushi Akimoto.
 
With: Koji Yakusho, Miki Imai, Shun Shioya, Nao Minamisawa, Haruka Igawa, Ittoku Kishibe.
 
A dying man seeks out those he he has wronged throughout his life in the touching if culturally idiosyncratic Japanese meller "Walking My Life." This restrained effort may spark some interest due to the international profile of lead actor Koji Yakusho ("Babel," "Memoirs of a Geisha"), but commercial prospects will be confined to Asian markets. Skewing toward older auds, pic drew respectable B.O. in Japan last October. Asian fests may take a look, but mainstream fests will find the sentimentality an obstacle.

Yarn begins with 48-year-old construction project manager Yukihiro Fujiyama (Yakusho) learning he has advanced lung cancer. Since surgery will be pointless, the husband and father of two teenage children decides he will live out his remaining six months without any medical attention. While he initially keeps his impending mortality to himself, Fujiyama decides death will be more peaceful if he first seeks out the people he has hurt over his lifetime.

The dying man's apologies are met with mixed results, but Western auds will have the most difficulty with Fujiyama's long-term mistress, Etsuko (Haruka Igawa). While the protag's infidelity is not completely skipped over, cultural peculiarities ensure that this is one guilty secret neither Fujiyama nor Satsuo Endo's script feels any need to confront head-on. This major hurdle notwithstanding, the deliberately paced story brims with authentic emotion.

Known to international auds for his work in "Tampopo" and "Shall We Dance?" (1996), Yakusho has long been renowned throughout Japan and here adds to a long list of stellar perfs. His transformation from healthy, middle-aged guy to wasting cancer patient is remarkable. Other perfs are solid, but reliable character actor Ittoku Kishibe stands out as Fujiyama's resentful but relenting older brother.

Isaka's helming is competent but tends toward repetitious, the camera too often creeping toward the actors to achieve intimacy. Tech credits are good.

Original Japanese title means "elephant's back," referring to the pachyderm's tendency to die in a predetermined place.

Camera (color), Shogo Ueno; music, Akira Senju; production designer, Katsumi Kaneda; sound (Dolby Digital), Fumio Hashimoto. Reviewed on DVD, Sydney, Feb. 25, 2008. (In Berlin Film Festival -- market.) Running time: 124 MIN.