I've given 'Kohi jiko' a low score not because it was a bad movie, but because it doesn't do anything worth praising.

I've not seen any of Hsiao-hsien Hou's work before, but for the uninitiated (me included) 'Kohi jiko' is advertised as a homage to Yasujiro Ozu. (A Japanese director whose last film was way, way in 1962) The film is an extremely sparse work...containing very little dialogue, story, music or emotion.

Yo Hitoto plays 'Yoko' a jobless, wandering character who spends her time in her local coffee shop or loosely investigating a Taiwanese composer she likes. Tadanobu Asano plays her friend, who works in a cd shop and occasionally indulges his otaku interest in trains. And that's about all it.

We watch as Yoko drinks coffee alone...walks around...waits for a train...catches a train...falls asleep on the train. The kind of mundane reality anybody in Japan can see on a daily basis. Hou captures these ordinary moments of these characters life, but without any meaning to these vignettes it's an entirely pointless film to make or watch.
How would you describe the sentiment of this review?
negative