User Reviews

Kondo Kaoru is a serious young woman who makes a living as a real estate agent. A bit too cold and serious, Kaoru is told to lighten up after a customer complains about her attitude. Even her younger brother finds her stony disposition to be too much to take. However, Kaoru is a kind young woman at heart, and one day while she is taking a day of mandatory vacation, the viewer learns why Kaoru has become so hard edged.

Roughly around the time Kaoru was ten years old, her father left his secure company job to take up the shady occupation of a used car salesman, an industry often linked with criminal elements in Japan, and his wife, a rigid and uncompromising woman, leaves him and her children one morning without saying a word. Kaoru and family live for a short duration of time off junk food while her father's gambling buddies/business partners fill the house with cigarette smoke and empty beer bottles. One day, a long-haired slender woman sporting garish clothing makes her presence at the Kondo household, stating that she is there to make meals for Kaoru and her brother Makoto. This woman is Yoko, a chain-smoking, tough-talking woman who, unbeknownst to Kaoru and her brother, is her father's mistress.

Kaoru is reluctant to strike up a relationship with Yoko at first, because her stodgy mother and conservative school have instilled within her a proper way to act, which is not necessarily a bad thing considering her weak-willed fun loving father, but she begins to loosen up and enjoy herself with Yoko who does such things as teach the timid Kaoru how to ride a bike in order to gain freedom. Soon, Kaoru accepts Yoko into her life, but with her father doing shady business deals and the chance of her mother will return can such happiness stay for long? Dog in a Sidecar is a short, thoughtful movie about growing up and taking the bumps life gives. Kaoru is earnest and sweet, but her environment and parents do not allow her to fully grow as a person and it is a woman from outside the fold of her daily life that changes her. It is these interactions with the other, the unknown and unfamiliar that change Kaoru. Would she have been the same hard-nosed woman if she had not met Yoko or would she have become as weak-willed as her father if her mother had stayed with the family? This question is unanswerable, but at least she learned that Coca Cola does not melt her teeth as her mother had informed her.

I understand that this movie tried to show the relationship between the mistress and her lover's daughter. I think its depicted quite well. But I dont like the pacing of this movie, its quite slow and predictable. Why I said "nothing to tell" but I still give this movie 6, because its still watchable and quite enjoyable for some part. I love Toru's character by the way.

DOG IN A SIDECAR (SAIDOKÂ NI INU). Viewed on Streaming. Subtitles = eight (8) stars; cinematography = five (5) stars; film-to-digital transfer = three (3) stars. Director Kichitaro Negishi channels a familiar theme by showing what happens when a sheltered, inhibited grade-school girl (SG) unexpectedly encounters her (or at least her mother's) exact opposite (in the guise of a free-spirited young women who is "too old to be her sister and too young to be her mother") . Using a flashback, Negishi relates how a now part-time realtor spent her vacation some 20 summers ago when the girl's mother abandoned her children and loser husband (who sells used cars that are mostly stolen and re-plated) and was "replaced" by the husband's mysterious (and well-financed) girl friend (GF) who one day abruptly just shows up to cook a meal. The GF quickly bonds with the SK and pulls the latter out of her shell by introducing her to life in the real-world (most of which she had been missing out on). The Director also uses this same theme as a thread that runs through his tale: the GF seems also once to have been a withdrawn little girl (which is why she bonds so expertly) and the now realtor (prior to the flashback) is shown helping a shy grade school girl overcome her hesitations. Regrettably, all good things come to an end. The mother returns (to the field of marital battle) and the GF is kicked out after the two literally butt heads (the mother is knocked out!). Acting especially by the two female leads is simply delightful to watch. Yûko Takeuchi cast as the GF is not only stunning to look at but hilarious to watch with dynamic facial expressions that are usually the hallmark of a stage-trained actresses (which she is). Kana Matsumoto plays the SK who is acting (very effectively!) about 10 years younger than she really is (which may account for the lack of typical scene stealing by a child actor since she is not!). Cinematography (semi-wide screen, color) is so-so. Color and lighting are fine with many tracking shots that do not become distractions. But some scenes seem a bit out of focus at least initially. Film-to-digital transfer has problems and may have added to poorly focused scenes. Panning is jerky due to inept domain conversion. Subtitles are fine. A movie that leaves the viewer wishing it had been a bit longer! Highly recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.