With a string of meaningful contemporary dramas Kore-Eda Hirokazu established himself as perhaps the finest Japanese director working today. Yet with Hana Yori Mo Naho he is entering into new territory, that of the traditional samurai film and historical drama. This might seem to take him out of place, but not long into the picture you realize this isn't a blood and guts decapitation fest but a meditation on the Japanese moral code and adapting to changing times. Nothing might be particularly new here, but to take a post modernist mentality, everything has already been done before. This in many ways continues the groundwork already laid out in After Life, Maborosi, and Nobody Knows (still haven't seen Distance). In addition it takes those themes somewhat further by letting us know that they've been around for ages and probably aren't going to end.

The film is full of small touches to marvel at and observe. When three characters go to the temple to pray, they reveal what they prayed for. Of course the insight of a young boy reveals a poignant point "How can one god answer so many prayers?" Its mentioned in passing, but it brings up a good point. The nature of the afterlife which was so brilliantly covered in Kore-eda's earlier film is not so much the focus here, but something that people do think about because the picture is very much concerned with mortality. As one character who knows nothing of the subject exclaims near the end that for a samurai the most important thing is their death. For the particular samurai at the heart of our story, he quickly finds that life is far more worth living and that a never ending quest for vengeance is an empty pursuit. Dying a noble death is no more heroic than living a foolish life, and the 46 samurai who find they have nothing to do in a time of piece "heroically" commit hara-kiri at the film's end. It is a waste and thankfully Kore-eda spares us the bloodshed that so many other directors would find irresistible to leave out.

The irony of the film that so many of the male characters point out is that life isn't really worth living without wars, there's nothing to do. A foolish notion if ever there was one, and the village quickly finds that the smartest people living in it are the children, because they're the ones actually learning to read. The ignorant peasants in town dismiss the samurai's teaching because they still think its more important to know how to fight. They even take it upon themselves to teach the children sword skills, which none of them have, in fact they don't even have a sword. What does get revealed is that the avenging samurai who we have come to regard as a somewhat peaceful and endearing teacher bound by family duty to a task his heart isn't really in doesn't seem to have any samurai skills at all. Its a welcome relief from the typical "super warrior" samurai films we usually see, so much so that our initial reaction is to believe he's bluffing and will emerge a fierce warrior.

His bloodlust gets watered down a bit when he finds himself falling in love with a beautiful widow in the town. Her husband has died years ago from a lung disease but her son doesn't know this, and even makes the image of his father to match that of the man the samurai is looking to kill. It gets somewhat complicated, but we can tell instantly that these two are attracted to each other, but in a village this small every single person wants to know what's going on. In fact even the samurai's uncle who checks in on him believes the widow's kid to be his own, despite the fact that he's only been gone three years and the child is eight. In this world however nothing is quite as simple as two people who love each other being together. Along the way Kore-eda adds some dimensions to the film that make it appear a play within a play, but the fundamental issues remain the same. A welcome change to so many films of the genre, and one that when released here in the states (hopefully soon) will hopefully solidify his status as Japan's pre-eminent filmmaker.