User reviews

This film has a nostalgic feel even for those who have not lived in that time period, and at no time does it feel forced or unsympathetic. This film has a lot emotion - it will make you laugh, it will make you cry.

ALWAYS SAN CHOME NO YUHA is a warm-hearted, good intentioned story of Japan after the world war as a group of characters deal with the wonders and disappointments of the day. A young girl (Maki Horikita in one of her most winning roles) is good at bicycle repairs, but it seems she's been hired to fix autos; a struggling writer finds himself saddled with having to raise of orphaned boy who has few expectations or dreams; a bar hostess saddled with debts has an uncertain future;; and a doctor is haunted by memories from before the war, when his family was still alive.

The children in the story seem to be the focus of the screenplay, a real-life symbol of the future Japan.

The movie almost seems to glow from within, giving a feeling of optimism and warmth in spite of the small crises that appear from time to time. The film can feel a bit slick as the plot moves from one set-up to the next - but it's also carefully written and quite artfully composed. In the background, we periodically see vistas a Tokyo Tower being built in the background - a symbol for the growth of a new Japan- and its this hardy spirit of survival that animates the story.

I had the chance to see this film because a friend brought the DVD back from Japan. Otherwise I don't think I would ever have had the opportunity to watch it.

The cover of the DVD says "Over 270 million people have cried" over this film. I don't doubt that for a moment. This movie is funny, serious, sweet, suspenseful, hilarious and totally satisfying.

The special effects are beautifully rendered and reminded me of what Steven Spielberg might have done if he were making this film. The setting of Tokyo in 1958 is seamlessly recreated, as characters in this film are placed into footage of a 1950's Japanese film.

I would love to know how they did this, and I'm going to research it. As soon as I find out I'll update this post.

Everything about this film is romantic. Don't miss it.

Beautiful, simple and fantastic movie about everyday difficulties and joys. Saw it twice and wept as much the second time. Although over two hours long there was never a second of boredom. Extra cred for making Tokyo in 1958 so realistic, still without skyscrapers and metros! Characters was very well chosen. Even the kids are real professionals here!

The main plot is about two stories waved together skillfully. A young "has-been" novelist meets a young boy who was abandoned and is been forced to take him in for the time being. A girl from the countryside takes a job in the big city, Tokyo, at what she thinks is a big automobile company (Suzuki auto). But nothing is what it seems! It's about love beyond family ties, but never the less easy.

This piece of great film work took Japan by storm, and once I saw it realized why it had turned out that way. The film is immensely nostalgic and filled with bits of memorable moments that would send you bursting out with laughter while tears are still continuing to fill up your eyes.

The plot is austerely simple, yet the characters are smartly introduced and thoroughly elaborated. It's ultimately easy for us to believe that the Third Street community and those characters are real. The relationships between them are reasonably developed and eventually leads to a powerful and heart-wrenching-yet-warmly ending.

This is not a regular tear-jerker. Emotional scenes are not forced in as in any other movies, but effectively and strategically put into the right places, resulting in a gradual and natural emotional building.

The music and photography are flawless, and tremendously help with the holistic ambiance of the film. Acting is also impeccable.

Truly a worth-seeing gem for movie lovers. Another delicate Asian craft which has all the qualities that Hollywood mainstream movies still lack of.

This film has won so many awards and it deserves every single one of them. Set in Tokyo in 1958 at the time of the construction of the Tokyo Tower, the story depicts a few families in that neighborhood and the things they go through. It has both comic turns and, once in a while, sad references. It is also overtly sentimental at times, but the emotional power of the film never wanes, and it is just a feel great film. The acting is excellent. There are real glimpses into the meaning of family, love and caring, and just generally sharing your time together. If you think you are going to watch this film and promise yourself you will not be sucked in by its sentiment, you are missing the point. Its supposed to make you laugh and cry. Although Tokyo has demonstrably changed since 1958 (I went there in May 2008, you wouldn't be able to find traces of this existence), this is a period film which just works wonderfully. It was so successful, a sequel was done. I'm going to watch that, since, based on this film alone, I want to see what happens to these characters from here. That is how great the film is, that one film alone is not good enough to let these characters go. Simply a triumph that deserves all the success it has achieved.

This movie is like a folk tale about the '50s Japan when it was experiencing rapid recovery from the carnage of WWII.

Roku-chan (Maki Horikita) is a newly graduate of high school. She's coming to Tokyo to find a job from Aomori. She finds a job at Suzuki automobile shop where she meets Norifumi, and Tomoe. Ryunosuke Chagawa is an aspiring novel writer. He's aiming to win the prestigious Akutagawa award, but for the time being, runs the candy store he inherited from his grandmother and writes novels for the boy's magazine. The story revolves around Roku-chan, the Suzuki family, and Chagawa, in the back alleys of downtown Tokyo.

This is the best made of the trilogy (so far) in terms of story, and production. Acting is the most natural, and special effects and props, most restrained.

Based on a comic by Ryohei Saigan, the story is about people's life in the Showa period of Japan. It's like watching a museum of that era with live people moving about it.

The actor who was doing the role of Chagawa seems to be over acting, and all the characters seems to be just wearing the Showa mask except for Hiroko Yakushimaru who played Tomoe. I can feel realism from her acting. Shinichi Tsutsumi was also over acting, and Maki Horikita didn't convey flesh and blood country girl who came out to Tokyo no matter how much she spoke the Tohoku dialect.

So I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a museum display in action. Everybody tried too hard to make it look like the Showa period which made it look unauthentic.

But out of the three movies of this title, this one is the best made of the bunch.

This movie is based on 2 things, technology and nostalgia.

Computer graphics reappear the scenery of Tokyo 40 years before,it's so wonderful and filled with humanity.Current Tokyo city might be not so beautiful and humanity lost anywhere,so almost scenery evokes nostalgia.

Although the story is not so rich, fine episodes are often planned. The character of the doctor who lost wife and a child in war is excellent.The figure of the Japanese who were gazing at the future being captured in the past for a while, calls sympathy.

If you have never been to Tokyo City in 1960's,you can go now by seeing this movie.

While Takashi Yamazaki may be guilty of manipulation in wringing out the nostalgia-induced sentimentality off his viewers' hearts and eyes, it's not like those potential tears are totally undeserved in the oh-so romantic rendering of a bygone Tokyo. "Always - Sunset on Third Street," adapted from Ryohei Saigan's manga, has all the adornment of schmaltz as it follows a number of the Tokyo working class in 1958 as, following the war and backdropped by a being rebuilt Tokyo Tower, they steadily struggle through their lives to a better future. Yamazaki, though, roots his film in an innocent glorification of the community striving for a common goal as seen through warm sepia tones and golden hues.

Among the multitude of the characters, Mutsuno Hoshino (Maki Horikita, who I just have to say remains as one of my favorite Japanese actors) is a recent junior high graduate who goes to Tokyo dreaming of a job at a prestigious automobile company only to find herself working as a repair woman in a car repair shop owned by Norifumi Suzuki (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi). Across the street is Ryunosuke Chagawa (Hidetaka Yoshioka), a candy shop owner struggling to make it as a serious novelist and makes up for his literary shortcomings by regularly submitting juvenile stories for a boys' magazine. Hiromi Ishizaki (Koyuki), a sake bar owner with a shady past, receives Junnosuke (Kenta Suka), a boy abandoned by his single mother, to be left in her care and, in turn, she leaves the boy to Ryunosuke.

Taking place in a broadly idealistic and exaggeratedly whimsical parallel reality, Yamazaki may often succumb to contrived melodramatic trappings and a few missed comedic notes, yet his relentlessly effervescent tale possesses absorbing set pieces and a contagious joie de vivre none so more affectingly displayed by the film's closing shot. An unabashedly giddy fairy tale, "Always" is an ode and a love letter to the city's halcyon days as shared by its inhabitants who are slowly rising from its past and, slowly but surely, to the age of TV, refrigerator, and Coca-Cola.

It begins with a view from a young girl getting her grand dream of working in Tokyo and expands into such a complex story. A wonderfully written movie with a great story telling of humanity and lessons of life that everyone can learn from. It's a beautiful movie. Why isn't it here in the US??? I saw the movie en-route to Tokyo in March 2006. there were a lot of foreign films that are very well down, perhaps, American film makers should watch more foreign films and learn how to tell a story right. This movie alone worth my trip and I will always travel on China Airlines for it's good choice of movies. Movies like this should be imported more often. All actors done a good job. I have only cried about a movie twice before, this is the 3rd film made me cry!

Japan used to be known as a powerhouse of film. Not only Kurosawa's critically acclaimed work, but even the likes of Miike, anime films, and more fringe directors. You could always count on Japanese cinema for something fresh, meaningful, and, often times, a little odd.

After the turn of the century, it seems that Japan has taken a turn for the worse, and a few years into the Japanese film academy's award for Best Picture after the millenium's commencement and you can start to see a pattern.

Always Sunny on Third Street, while visually, appealing, is just a maudlin little tear-jerker with a little too much comedy to be taken seriously. Aside from the outlandish comedy, there's nothing really odd or original about it either so that it plays like a made-for-TV holiday film from the USA.

It's set around the 1960s in Japan. The characters don't seem poor, but they are at first a little uncomfortable, having to acquire the technology of the new modern world slowly throughout the course of the movie. They'll gawk at television sets, electric refrigerators, etc. This world with all its limitations and simple pleasures is perhaps the best thing about the film.

The rest are just stereotypical melodramatic relationships. There's an orphan, a semi-orphan, a woman in such debt that she has to take jobs she doesn't want, and cheap emotional moments. At one point, the orphan's surrogate father keeps physically pushing him away while the tearful chylde keeps coming back to him, refusing to go back to his rich birth family because he'd formed a bond with the man. After the 5th time of pushing I was just wondering how many more drops of milk they could squeeze out of the scene.

Christmas hearts are warmed, a laconic side-character doctor's tragic backstory is revealed, and the protagonist silly author proposes to the town beauty who is, of course, terribly flattered. It's all a string of saccharine or tragic moments reminiscent of a made-for-TV Christmas movie.

As I mentioned, the only Japanese thing about this movie is this author. He is silly, weak, and effeminate - very much a comic character - who complains in loud screeches about every little thing throughout the movie and has exaggerated movements and facial expressions. So Japanese, but quite inappropriate an inclusion for this melodrama.

Honourable Mentions: Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I've never seen the show, but the titles are so similar it's distracting. This movie had almost nothing to do with sunsets, nor do I know what Third Avenue is. Why the two have such similar names and whether this movie copied the other, I don't know.

this is the best film i've seen. it emotes and moves you. Idealistic and simplistic (how can you avoid them in a two-hour media) but still captures the essence of Tokyo pre-economic boom and Japan's march toward materialism. Hope, innocence, inter-dependence, both individually and societally, are wonderfully captured in this film. Acting for the roles of Ippei, Tomoe, Roku, and Junnosuke are superb. The background music is excellent. Memorable scenes: Ippei and friends flying airplane, Roku and Ippei meeting for the first time and exchanging greetings in Roku's Tohoku dialect, Ippei noticing Roku crying in her room the first night at the Suzuki's and Ippei asks, "What happened? Do you have a stomach-ache?" Ah, the innocence lost. Where have you gone?

I have watched Always - Sunset on Third Boulevard three times and it remains a wonderful movie experience. It gets better with each viewing like a well cooked broth. It is funny and touching at the right time. The pacing of the movie and some scenes felt like they came out of the manga, although it has so much more to offer.

The cinematography and music help set a nostalgic feel of what it might have been like in 1950s Tokyo. It is full of spirit and energy where the country is on an accelerated path in rebuilding and redefining itself. There is hint of the Meiji Restoration, where the denizens of Tokyo enthusiastically absorb Western cultures, from pro-wrestling to Coca-Cola.

And the building of Tokyo Tower, itself a smaller replica of The Eiffel, symbolizes the emergence of post-WW II Japan - a dichotomy of Eastern identity that embraces Western advancements.

The product design and CGIs were top notch for its time, and I love how they use the different stages of Tokyo Tower's construction and the seasonal changes to mark the individual story arcs' progression.

The movie embraces its manga roots with sincerity: all the characters' quirks and social slapsticks remain intact. Horikita Maki's Mutsuko is simply adorable as the country girl (check out that rural dialect) trying to make it in a big city. The uncommon romance between the gorgeous host girl Hiromi and the oddball writer Ryunosuke. Plus many more delightful details make Always, not only a funny snapshot of behavioral comedy, but also a touching ode to a bygone era.

How can you not love a movie filled with this much heart?

The emotions I had while watching the movie warmed me up. Even though ordinary events happened, it was very nice that the movie told about it. I'm very excited about the manga and other movies in the serie. it was a great movie with its acting and artistry.

This is a very touching and well-made film, but someone sprinkled it with a little too much fairy dust. I was with it every step of the way, handkerchief in hand for the clockwork gushes that punctuate virtually every dramatic segment with almost pornographic regularity. But this is not a very honest picture of life in Tokyo in 1958, in spite of the insistence that the construction of the city (the bigger picture of society, economy, etc represented by the gradual erecting of Tokyo Tower in the background) is of a piece with the micro-narratives of small individuals going about life on an inconsequential block somewhere in the urban sprawl. Still, whatever project this Disney-esquire nostalgia is serving, I can't discount the film's magic too much. I'm one to prefer a little dark cynicism over what strikes me as a kind of Tinkerbell fraudulence, but I have to admit that this movie is pretty good at what it does.

I have watched many movies in my long life but can truly say that I've seen nothing better than this one. Maybe it's because we now live in an age when movies are story starved high tech sex and violence ravings that this film stands high above the crowd. Do not miss it. It's a beautifully woven tale about ordinary people that will make you laugh and cry. The acting and direction is superb and the musical score is delightful. Watching this movie can remind you of the important things in life,can make us maybe rethink our values. Both sexes and all ages will enjoy this presentation.I will certainly be watching this movie again. It is that good and that enjoyable.

I went from cautiously liking this film in the first 40 minutes to despising it in the last hour or so. The schmaltzy sentimentality accumulates and creeps up on you, until towards the end you feel overdosed on insincerity to the point of nausea. The emotion portrayed is utterly hollow and manipulative in its dishonesty. By apparently trying to copy/compete with Hollywood at its most disingenuous, this film surpasses the worst of Hollywood hypocrisy.

There is plenty of style in the technical aspects of the film-making, but for all the "realistic" computer graphics recreating the city of Tokyo in 1958, no amount of vacuous slickness can give any honesty, reality or authenticity to the people and situations. The empty "rebirth symbolism" of the construction of the tower is an appropriate reflection of the empty film itself; is the film's soullessness symptomatic of the soullessness of the country's "rebirth" since the destruction of 60 years ago?

My wife and I saw this little gem of a film last night at a Japanese festival in Montreal and loved it. That being said I want to comment on the negative reviews about the film.

I find the comments veer towards the overly glib and formulaic. The film does not meet this or that film model. It did not accurately represent the the reality of post war Japan (most reviewers are not qualified to knowledgeably opine on that reality). And the most ludicrous of them all; it tried to make me feel too good, etc.

Come on people, stop deconstructing; some times a cigar is just a cigar. The story is the story, the acting the acting. Get your heads out of film class and just have a good time if that is where this film leads you. Otherwise, stop trying to keep others from having a good time.

I was amazed how 1958 Tokyo was recreated so wonderfully and realistically with CG! Great story and character development. It definitely will bring a tear to your eye - though does get a bit over sentimental in places. Which may have some people reaching for a bucket as well as a box of tissues.

The CG effects and set designs are incredible in bringing 50s Tokyo to life - and you will be absorbed into that era.

There is also a cameo from Pierre Taki from Japanese Techno/pop band Denki Groove !! I really enjoyed the movie despite being a bit too sentimental and would recommend this movie to anyone!

Does a wonderful job of giving the viewer a look at what life in 1958 Tokyo was like. Likable characters, believable situations, and terrific recreation of a period neighbourhood.

The atmosphere is spot-on as is the 'mood' of the people, and they must have raided every antiques shop, not to mention more than a few museums to produce several of the scenes.

There's what has to be one of the most memorable scenes involving something which doesn't exist that I can recall. Won't say more for fear of spoiling it, but it worked beautifully in context.

There's even mostly happy endings, though they do set up the possibility of a sequel and now that I know there is one, I'm very much looking forward to seeing it.