May
11
2008
Rainbow Song
Posted by luna6 11 Comments
Movies: Rainbow Song (虹の女神)
Release Date: October 28, 2006
Country: Japan
Director: Naoto Kumazawa
Starring: Hayato Ichihara, Juri Ueno
Runtime: 116 Min
Editor Rating: 7.0
Users Rating: 7.69 
(26 votes)
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Going into “Rainbow Song” I had mixed feelings about the movie. On the one hand there’s the impressive cast of Juri Ueno, Yu Aoi, and Hayato Ichihara. There’s also a fellow named Shunji Iwai listed as the film’s producer. On the other hand the movie is a straight up pure love (jun’ai) flick, a genre that features a few brilliant films but a gazillion maddeningly dumb yawnfests. So with those two diametrically opposed forces appearing together, I did wonder which side would win out. Fortunately, “Rainbow Song” came out just fine.
In “Rainbow Song,” Kishia Tomoya (Hayato Ichihara) learns that his good friend, Sato Aoi (Juri Ueno), died in an airplane crash somewhere over California. He leaves work to visit Sato’s family and provide support in any way he can.
Rewind a few years earlier, Kishia and Sato first meet under strange circumstances. Kishia has a bad tendency of stalking girls after they break up with him. He just so happens to be stalking Sato’s friend at work. When Sato hears about her friend’s stalker she becomes all creeped out by him. Meanwhile, Kishia attempts to befriend Sato in order to get closer to his ex-girlfriend. With persistence, Kishia is able to make friends with Sato and, in the process, has Sato falling head over heals for him. Unfortunately, Kishia is totally oblivious to Sato’s true feelings.
Back to the present time and Kishia is in Sato’s room, reading a letter she wrote years back. It finally starts sinking in what Kishia Sato’s true feelings were and, perhaps, his true feelings for Sato come to the surface.
Not since “Crying Out Love in the Center of the World” (Kou Shibaski and Masami Nagasawa), has there been two sisters as lovely as Juri Ueno and Yu Aoi. Speaking of “Crying Out Love”, the setup of “Rainbow Song” has an eerily similar setup: start out in the present, go back in time to introduce main characters when they first meet, romance blooms, tragedy occurs, younger sister is introduced, jump back in time to the present, younger sister takes prominent role, while older sister is honored in memory. That in a nutshell describes both films to a tee. So what makes “Rainbow Song” something more than a generic retread of “Crying out Love…”? Well main reason would be J-U-R-I U-E-N-O. Once Juri Ueno appears in the film, the movie makes an amazing transformation from a run-of-the-mill jun’ai flick to something quite special. You do get the feeling of watching a rainbow appear after a summer shower. Definitely, Juri Ueno’s best performance since “Swing Girls.”
And that’s not to say the other performers in “Rainbow Song” were shabby in any way. Hayato Ichihara, as main character Kishia Tomoya, certainly exuded his own set of charms. Something as inane as the way he spoke (emphasizing certain syllables differently than others) made his character come to life. Yui Aoi, in her supporting role as the blind younger sister, was her usual charismatic self. While she sat on the bench and spoke with Kishia, her smile just glistened with this amazingly quiet exuberance that’s all Yu Aoi.
So yes, the performances were very good. Juri Ueno, in particular, gave the film the charisma needed to elevate it from mediocrity. The script itself was strictly standard fare for its genre, nothing special. But, don’t watch “Rainbow Song” hoping for the unexpected, rather watch the movie for the performances and the characters. You’ll likely find the movie to come alive because of this.
buy Rainbow Song
Cast:
Hayato Ichihara – Tomoya Kishida
Juri Ueno – Aoi Sato
Yu Aoi – Kana Sato
Wakana Sakai – Kyoko Asakura
Ami Suzuki – Sayumi Kubo
Shoko Aida – Chizuru Morikawa
Fumiyo Kohinata – Yasujiro Sato
Kuranosuke Sasaki – Shinsuke Higuchi
Hiroyuki Onoue – Jiro Hattori
Kei Tanaka – Gakuto Ogata
Tomohiro Kaku
Emi Suzuki
Pierre Taki
Satoshi Yamanaka
If you like this movie you may enjoy: Crying Out Love In the Center of the World, Hana & Alice, Tokyo Serendipity
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2006 Movie Reviews, Japanese Movies, Movie Reviews |
Comments
11 Comments so far
10 Sushi Stars for Juri… I watched this film twice or thrice last year because of Juri-chan’s performance.. n_n
The story about Hayato & the girl with a blinking heart/light on her chest was a let down but overall the film is great just because of Juri… hihi^^
I just loved the use of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” as part of the sound track. The wonderful Opus 32 ( Jupiter) allowed me to immerse myself in the film. Beautiful!
“Rainbow Song” got my attention last year and I finally managed to see this movie. The plot reminds me about some other movies like “Sono toki wa kare ni yoroshiku” (Say Hello for Me) and a little bit of “Heavenly Forest”.
I think it has been quite popular to have characters who are so lost in searching for their happiness and love that they fail to see that they have it all right in front of them (in the persons of their best friends). As usual in such situation one must lose somebody to realize it.
The characters are really sweet in their own special ways. However, the plot does not really leave the actors a lot of space to reveal and expand their potential.
I don’t think Kou Shibasaki’s character, Ritsuko was Aki’s (Masami Nagasawa) younger sister in “Crying Out Love…”, I think Ritsuko is just a random young girl Aki befriended during her last days in the hospital.
1minutefilmreview: Isao Yukisa doesn’t work as Iwai’s assistant director anymore after Swallowtail Butterfly since he had already became a very successful director himself after his own string of commercial and critical hits.
thanks. you’ve finally had this review..
i think the movie within a movie theme was really cool.
i’m always interested in film..
the music in the movie was also great..
this is a really cool movie
Really nice movie… Okay the plot is a little bit conventional but still the movie is rather good… (that’s my point of view)
Juri Ueno rock in this movie portraying an amazing girl.
As usual thank you for the reviews Luna !
I am a fan of Ueno Juri. Luna, i copied it to my blog. You can see it in the website above. Thanks for sharing!!!
Can’t really say that the movie was brilliant. It was good, but the performance of Juri Ueno was awesome. Like Luna said, the script was fair but Juri played her part really well and made the film look better.
Agree that its better to watch the movie for the performances rather than the plot itself.
I fell in love with Juri Ueno while watching this one last night. Her performance essentially carries the film (that’s no slight to other elements in the film).
Yu Aoi’s always been a charming, engaging performer, but Juri Ueno steals the show.
Great little movie.
it had a iwai feel to it but not enough..
still cried at the end, though. T_T
We prefer ‘Hana & Alice’ from Shunji Iwai. ‘Crying Out Loud’s director used to be 2nd director to Iwai but we’re not sure whether he’s still…