Not all comedy that makes you smile. The film, which began as in a certain sense a funny comedy about the nascent friendship of a young official with the harmful old age who pestered him with her numerous and seemingly quite absurd complaints, who at the same time somehow wants to learn English from him, suddenly at its peak, the drama and tragedy of a woman who, at the age of 13, was subjected to terrible things by the soldiers of the Japanese army during the Second World War, and who was forced to hide her secrets all her life, unable to open herself to anyone, stops at its peak. When this transformation occurs, and, most importantly, how it happens (and it is necessary to watch exactly how), the film personally caused me a lump in my throat and tears. Amazing turn of the film, the deepest respect for the authors of the film.
At first, the film cannot be taken seriously, because the actors quite masterfully show to some extent the absurdity of the plot canvas, complete immersion in the initial stage of comedy of what is happening, especially since the actors play on quite serious subjects and on a kind of serious topic, but the canvas of a purely humorous nature. And you willy-nilly accept the rules of the game, begin to believe in the funnyness of what is happening on the screen. But the further — and I must say, not so, very suddenly — the more powerful the spring of drama unfolds in the film, eventually causing the very emotions about which I wrote a little above.
And as a result, you begin to understand how clearly and accurately played almost all the roles, acting falsehood is not visible at all, the characters are shown to the limit naturalistically, convexly, textured. And at the same time, no less filigree untwisted and flywheel plot presentation of events. In general, wherever you look, and you come to the conclusion that the film is good, unexpectedly very good.
9 out of 10
Original