“…Love ..love …love” Excuse me for a moment. “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done. Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.” Now people in the back row sing with me “All you need is LOVE! …LOVE is all you need!” Whew - with that out of my system I can now turn my attention back to “Heavenly Forest.”

“Heavenly Forest” is a film adapted from Ichikawa Takuji’s novel “”Renai Shashin: Mo Hitotsu no Monogatari.”" The novel by Ichikawa Tauki was actually written as a spin-off to the 2003 film “Collage of Our Lives.” As with “College of Our Lives” you have two main characters in “Heavenly Forest” that loves photography, enters a photography contest and eventually winds up moving to New York City. Fortunately, “Heavenly Forest” is not anywhere as bad as the pretentious borefest known as “Collage Of Our Lives.”

The story in “Heavenly Forest” is a familiar one involving two outcasts : Shizuru (Aoi Miyazaki) and Makoto (Hiroshi Tamaki). Makato is a shy young teen, very self-conscious of smelling bad around others and thus hangs out by himself mostly. During the first day of orientation at his university Makoto meets Shizuru. Shizuru is a petite girl that looked far younger than her age and eats only candy sized donuts. She also has the appearance of Pippi Longstocking if she came from a Japanese manga. The two outsiders hit it off splendidly and quickly become friends. Makato shared his love of photography with Shizuro and the two spent their time taking pictures of the Heavenly Forest Unfortunately, Shizuro was in love with Makoto, but Makoto had a crush on another girl at school named Miyuki.

With the help of Shizuro’s friendship, Makoto becomes more confident and eventually becomes friends with Miyuki. The two spend more and more time together as Shizuro looks on as the third wheel. One day Shizuro asks Makoto to help her with a photo she is composing for a photo competition. She takes a photo of herself and Makoto kissing for the first time. After that day…Shizuro disappears.

A love story like that certainly had the potential to become a formulaic yawn fest, but fortunately “Heavenly Forest” was more of an entertaining smile-fest. The film was filled with eye candy and the pacing was refreshingly upbeat for most of its runtime. The principle cinematographer in “Heavenly Forest” was Shinjo Takehiko, a well known director of Japanese drama shows. Like those Japanese television dramas, “Heavenly Forest” had a vibrant modern look filled with sharp looking people everywhere. Aoi Miyazaki and Hiroshi Tamaki were both compelling in their leading roles, even if they tended to exaggerate their facial expressions to much in their earlier years. Hiroshi Tamaki actually spoke in a higher pitched voice to seem younger than his age. Props goes out to Aoi Miyazaki for taking on a role that seems initially out of character for her. Even though she looked cute as a button with the glasses and frizzy hair, when the glasses came off the change was stunning.

The film concluded on a more sentimental note ready to pull on the heartstrings of the viewers. Although I didn’t enjoy those moments as much the rest of the film – it could have been a lot worse. Thankfully the scenes were refined enough that the cutesy melodrama elements didn’t become overbearing. In a way the ending scenes recalled the spirit of one of my all time favorite films “Failan” but aimed squarely for the hearts and minds of the teenage crowd. For me personally, the charm of “Heavenly Forest” was simply Aoi Miyazaki and when she appeared so did the smiles. Overall, “Heavenly Forest” was an engaging film that seems especially well suited for teens & teens still at heart. “Love ..Love…Love…”