(rated PG 13, 122 mins.)
Japanese actor/director Takeshi Kitano plays the title role in this story of a gruff middle-aged man whose no-nonsense wife (Kayolko Kishimoto) instructs him to accompany Masao, an 8 year old boy (Yusuke Sekiguchi), on a quest to find the mother he’s never met. After an all-types-of-people-along-the-way-adventure, Masao reaches his mother and finds a crushing disappointment leaving him no alternative but to concoct elaborate fantasies to relieve his sorrow. Unfortunately it’s too contrived. The supposed mentor/boy team is pretty bad to begin with, and too purposely set up. Second, while it tugs at heart strings it’s barely coherent or understandable in structure either. And, Takeshi walks around with a less-than-grumpy-old-Walter-Matheau-man-appeal that is supposed to make us connect with him and the child, yet he fails to do that himself, so that when he finally soften it’s almost too far fetched and slightly comical. Well intended, bad results.
