What a sweet, funny movie!

Rating: 9/10 (19 October 2003)

This is a movie written by travelers, for travelers. The core of the story, an attraction between an older man and a younger woman could happen anywhere. The backdrop (mostly late night Tokyo) made me smile, remembering 1000 similar nights jumping back and forth between cities on the other side of the Pacific. The same bars, the same karaoke, the same ugly Americans, the same silly brushes with cultures familiar and strange.
Some reviewers have complained that the movie is some sort of sniggering in-joke, with the Japanese being largely unsubtitled, and several interesting scenes (like a visit to a shrine in Kyoto) going by silently and unexplained. The point is, it's supposed to be that way. We're seeing Japan through the eyes of innocents abroad. They don't understand half of what's going on around them, and you don't have to either. If you've spent enough time in Japan or elsewhere in Asia to catch some of the background, so much the better. If not, make like the characters. Sit back, take it all in, and smile.