Plenty of Japanese directors make films about socially awkward or marginal guys: Given all the on-screen examples (as well as their many real-life inspirations), it seems that the one-time country of the samurai has become the land of the otaku and freeter (part-time or freelance worker), clasping to emotional childhood and/or the economic bottom rungs.
Okita Shuichi has also focused on non-mainstream men in his three features to date: the perfectionist Antarctic base camp cook of The Chef of South Polar (Nankyoku Ryorinin, 2009), the nervous tyro film director of The Woodman and the Rain (Kitsutsuki to Ame, 2011) and the eponymous hick hero of his latest, A Story of Yonosuke (Yokomichi Yonosuke). Okita may have his gentle, if comically pointed, fun with them, but ultimately he is more interested in their not-immediately-obvious strengths.
Also, despite their feel-good elements, his films are not simplistic crowd-pleasers. Instead Okita avoids obvious messages, while opting for methods that may be indirect but are never obscure.
Based on Yoshida Shuichi’s novel, A Story of Yonosuke marks a new advance in this line, announcing as it does a major plot point well before it occurs. Far from spoiling the film, however, this reveal gives everything that happens after (as well as before) a fresh resonance and poignance. From a charming fish-out-of-water comedy about a country boy in the big city emerges a smartly made drama that asks – and eloquently answers – one of the biggest questions of all: What do our lives really mean to those around us? How can one person have an impact, especially if he hardly seems to have a clue?
We first meet our hero, Yonosuke (Kora Kengo), as a college freshman in Tokyo in the go-go 1980s, when riches beyond the dreams of avarice seemed not only a dream but a national destiny. Fresh from a small town in Nagasaki Prefecture, he comes across as a typical comic naïf, but Yonosuke’s mix of uncalculating niceness and unshakable self-confidence make him an original, as well as unexpectedly successful at the social game.
Together with two classmates, a puppy-dog-eager guy (Ikematsu Sosuke) he meets at the entrance ceremony and a cute, friendly girl (Asakura Aki) who approaches him in class, he joins the university samba club and quickly finds his niche (if not a sense of rhythm). Flash forward two decades to his new friends, now a married couple, reminiscing about Yonosuke. What is going on here?
Rather than fill us in right away, the film soon returns us to the youthful career of our hero. Yonosuke befriends the cool, impeccably fashionable Kato (Ayano Go), who at first rebuffs his advances, but succumbs to his borderline-obnoxious, if well meant, tenacity. He is also recruited by the sexy, sophisticated Chiharu (Ito Ayumi), a sort of high-class hooker at the hotel where is Yonosuke is working part-time as a bellboy, to help her fend off an importunate client.
His most significant encounter, however, is with Shoko (Yoshitaka Yuriko), a prototypical bubble-era ojosama – that is, the carefully sheltered daughter of a filthy rich family, who is as unworldly in her sweet, spoiled way as Yonosuke is in his. She at first treats him as an amusing discovery for the delectation of her wised-up pals, but starts to see him differently when he rescues her from a mishap in the family pool. Love begins to bloom across the cultural/status chasm.
Working from Maeda Shiro’s script, Okita makes Yonosuke’s leap across this chasm something more than a comic stunt, without doing violence to his innocent essence. He also has an appealing Yonosuke in Kora Kengo, who also appeared as the slacker son of the lumberjack hero in The Woodman and the Rain, as well as an expedition member in The Chef of South Polar. Often cast in other directors’ films as troubled, even violent, types, Kora effortlessly makes the stretch to comedy for Okita, without sacrificing his trademark intensity.
Despite his verbal stumbles and social fumbles, his Yonosuke never becomes merely contemptible. Instead, he charms with his sheer brass, as well as his never-commented-upon good looks.
He also takes an un-affected delight in this world and its flawed inhabitants that gives this delightful film a warming glow – and a lingering echo when it ends.