At first, I thought this was going to be a movie about culture clashes, but it turned out to be a "language-clash" movie where people speaking different languages are basically the same. And I have to give the scriptwriters a little credit for developing a screenplay where the two leads don't understand each other's speech for the entire length of the movie. It's the kind of fanciful comedy with realistic touches-- though getting lost in China without speaking the languages can lead to far worse than the comic "random-ness" in the film.
But people who can't be bothered with subtitles should just forget about this movie-- in fact, with the number of languages (Japanese, English, Mandarin) and dialects used in this movie, this movie may need to be seen twice before anyone can catch all the dialogue or performances. This is a movie about linguistic (& other) barriers to communication-- so what makes it very confusing the first time around may actually make it more meaningful in later viewings, because most of the jokes are in the frequently "mis-matched" multi-lingual dialogue .
The main story and characters supply all the ingredients for a light, sentimental, romantic comedy, although the movie only gets really interesting half way through-- when the lost Japanese guy realizes that the lady taxi-driver is too nice to leave him stranded and tags along as she tries to look up her love interest. Which is why I wish the two of them were given more detail or screen time-- instead of spending 10-15 minutes of the movie on the 4 or 5 inconsequential secondary characters added for contrast or comic relief, who were more distracting than intriguing.
There's nothing to rave about in this film but lots of lovely little moments: like when they write out their names in the air for each other, or when they complain about each other over each other's complaints (since they can't understand each other anyway). The two leads are fun to watch because they misunderstand each other 99% of the time (you have read the subtitles to know this)-- making it really wonderful whenever they do make a connection. And the Chinese director deserves some credit for scripting and directing the Japanese half of the scenes and dialogue so smoothly that it looks like a Japanese movie half the time.
But people who can't be bothered with subtitles should just forget about this movie-- in fact, with the number of languages (Japanese, English, Mandarin) and dialects used in this movie, this movie may need to be seen twice before anyone can catch all the dialogue or performances. This is a movie about linguistic (& other) barriers to communication-- so what makes it very confusing the first time around may actually make it more meaningful in later viewings, because most of the jokes are in the frequently "mis-matched" multi-lingual dialogue .
The main story and characters supply all the ingredients for a light, sentimental, romantic comedy, although the movie only gets really interesting half way through-- when the lost Japanese guy realizes that the lady taxi-driver is too nice to leave him stranded and tags along as she tries to look up her love interest. Which is why I wish the two of them were given more detail or screen time-- instead of spending 10-15 minutes of the movie on the 4 or 5 inconsequential secondary characters added for contrast or comic relief, who were more distracting than intriguing.
There's nothing to rave about in this film but lots of lovely little moments: like when they write out their names in the air for each other, or when they complain about each other over each other's complaints (since they can't understand each other anyway). The two leads are fun to watch because they misunderstand each other 99% of the time (you have read the subtitles to know this)-- making it really wonderful whenever they do make a connection. And the Chinese director deserves some credit for scripting and directing the Japanese half of the scenes and dialogue so smoothly that it looks like a Japanese movie half the time.