Product: Snow Falling on Cedars (2000)
Rating: 3.0
Snow falling on my interest...
See theres a problem with the way this film was shot, the way this film was directed. It's long, dreary, confussing and at times very boring. That said, the storyline, which I was completly unaware of when renting the film, is not too shaby. It takes place on one of Washington State's San Juan Islands where the weather is always cold, damp, snowing and yes...dreary. Here is where a Japanese American war hero (Rick Yune, 'The Fast and the Furious') is accused of murdering a white fisherman for his land. The man's only hope is the testimony of an American journalist (Ethan Hawke, 'Training Day') who just may have figured out the real events leading up to the mans death, but there is something holding him back from testifying. It's his bitter-love for the accused wife (Youki Kudoh, 'Memiors of a Geisha'). They grew up together and were once lovers, but their racial differences forced them apart. Set in the 1950's shortly after WWII when the Japanese were hated by most American's the injustice is shown in the treatment of the trial and of the accused, and through flashbacks we can see how everyone was affected by the Pearl Harbor incident and so-on. The film as a whole, the idea and the acting is decent, at times brilliant, but with all the flashbacks it becomes difficult to understand whats really going on. So, three and a half stars is the best I can do. If the direction had been just slightly different then I may have been better pleased.