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Old 12-26-2012, 01:51 AM   #1
Talon87
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Hachi: A Dog's Tale


Wikipedia (film)
Wikipedia (true story)

With absolutely nothing good on television after lunch on Christmas Day, my dad started going through a collection of DVDs he'd recently gotten, asking if my sister would be up for watching any of them. After a few rejections, he came upon Hachi and diverted his attention from her to me. "Oh, Talon would love this one," he proceeds to explain, because it's Japanese and I am the family weeaboo. My mother, who has also seen the film, enthusiastically chimes in. "Let's watch that one," she says. She mentions that it's sad. This prompts my sister to say, "I don't want to watch a sad movie on Christmas! " So my mother backpedals a bit and claims, "Well it's not sad! It's sort of in between. You'll see."

One, my mother lied. Two, I bawled my eyes out. Despite knowing the real life story this film was based upon, despite knowing it since college some five and a half years ago, I was biting my cheeks to keep from sobbing -- and failing! -- by the end of this film. Having forgotten the dog's name in real life (which is also Hachikou or simply Hachi), I made the connection thirty or so minutes in as Hachi accompanies Richard Gere's character to the train station for the very first time. The moment I did that, I let out a pretty vocal "Oh no D: ", a mixture of laughter and trepidation. Thirty minutes after that I was fighting back tears. Thirty minutes after that I was laughing hysterically at my own inability to keep myself from bawling.

If you don't know the story already, I suggest watching the film first and then later you can read about the dog in real life. And if you already know about the famous "loyal dog of Shibuya Station," then I still suggest you watch the film. When I first heard the true story years ago, I enjoyed it for what it was but I guess it didn't really register as more than a nice little story, something I could tell people over coffee or tea. But watching it with professional actors and a hauntingly perfect piano theme just made it so visceral, so emotionally powerful.

Next post I'll write up my review of the film.
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Old 12-26-2012, 03:08 AM   #2
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I admit. I cried when I watched this. I love dogs... this is sooo.... </3 I agree with Talon on how emotionally powerful it is.
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Old 12-26-2012, 03:45 AM   #3
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I would rate Hachi: A Dog's Tale 4 stars out of 5. It's a great film everyone should see at least once in their lives but it has a few shortcomings that keep it from being one of the truly magnificents.

Perhaps the film's biggest problem is plot padding. It's pretty clear that what happened IRL is 1) someone went on vacation to Japan, 2) they heard the story behind the statue at Shibuya Station, and 3) they decided to turn it into a film. The problem is, the core story can be told in as little as two minutes and artfully transformed (as it was here) into forty-five. Forty-five minutes. That still leaves you with at least another forty-five minutes if you're trying to make a film for cinema. And that's exactly what the director and/or producer did here: they combined 45 minutes of the story you actually care about with 45 minutes of character development and dialogue ripped straight out of a Hallmark movie. You know the kind. Those made-for-TV movies that air every once in a while made or sponsored by Hallmark? Those. Half of the film's "plot" is this sort of plot padding. Seeing the professor (Richard Gere)'s character romance his wife. Seeing their daughter announce she's expecting. Seeing Gere chitchat with various supporting cast characters at and around the train station. All of it is just buying time. The best/worst example of this is the scene in the opera house / theater where the professor's wife is painting a mural. That scene was just so completely unnecessary. It establishes nothing of importance to the plot with Hachi and establishes nothing new for Gere's character either. "Oh, so he loves his wife a lot." So what? We already knew that. "Well then, it establishes her profession." A, that doesn't matter. And B, you already established her line of work back when Hachi chewed up some of her work-related stuff in like Minute 15 of the film. "Oh. " Yeah, oh. You got nothin', director / producer / whomever! There's simply no denying that Hachi is a 45-minute theatrical presentation of a 2-minute tale padded with an additional 45 minutes of fluff.

This may sound like a really damning criticism of the film, and you may well be wondering "How can he rate it 4 stars after saying all that? ", but I wasn't lying when I said that the director / writer / whoever managed to artfully transform this 2-minute tale for tourists into a 45-minute emotional tour de force. Regarding the "true plot" material with Hachi, not a single shot is wasted, every scene contributes, every word spoken carries some significance. There are few (and dare I say no) extraneous characters. I guess maybe the bookstore lady could be cut, but every other character is there for a reason. The professor's relationship with Hachi is perfectly advanced -- not too fast, not too slow. The plot milestones are perfectly placed (particularly from the perspective of one who can anticipate what's coming each step of the way). It's just really well done. Cut out the fluff and this movie would probably win the Oscar for Best Short Film.

Time for criticism #2. I mentioned how the plot padding felt very much like a made-for-TV film. Well, despite heaping praise on the dialogue words just now, the dialogue delivery is at times another beast altogether. Richard Gere does a pretty good job but even by his standards his performance here could feel a little Hallmarky. Jason Alexander and Erick Avari were pretty guilty of this, despite my respect for both actors in other performances. (Though tbh, Alexander does have this problem a lot.) Supporting characters like the professor's daughter, her husband, and the bookstore lady were really guilty of this.

Back to positives now. The film's "soundtrack", if it's right to call it that, is phenomenal. It's this one piece which plays again and again and again throughout the movie. If it is in fact different songs each time, then they share the same leitmotif(s). But I'm pretty sure it's just the same song over and over again. It turns out, we learn 20 to 25 minutes into the film, to be a piece the professor loves (and may have even composed himself). And so ...

(actual spoiler if you don't know the tale)
Spoiler: show
this, coupled with the repetition, really suits the core element of the plot: that Hachi loyally checked the station and waited there, day after day, year after year, until the day he died, always thinking of his master. The repetition suits Hachi's actions, the fact that the professor so loved the tune suits the idea that this would play in Hachi's mind in association with him.

So yeah. A+ to the person in charge of making musical decisions for this film. You definitely nailed the idea of "music as art".

Finally, one last plus: it's just a great story period. I know I already touched on this in the first pro paragraph, but what I want to address here is how this story does a fantastic job of exemplifying the Japanese ideal of loyalty. There is a reason that Hachikou's tale became a national treasure, with a statue built in 1934 and a second built in 1948 to replace the first (which was smelted for the war movement). All people around the world value loyalty, but the Japanese have an exceptionally high value placed on it, and so when a story like this one comes along, it's only natural that it become a national treasure. That alone makes the film worth seeing. The fact that a nation has celebrated this tale for over 75 years should tell you that it's probably not going to be a waste of your time to check it out. And by checking it out, you gain an appreciation for what sort of a people the Japanese are, for what sort of people they must be if they have passed this story down generation after generation.

Overall, a very good film. 4 out of 5 stars, would watch again.

Last edited by Talon87; 12-26-2012 at 04:03 AM.
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Old 12-26-2012, 03:59 AM   #4
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this movie made me cry. the dog was so faithful to his master. really a great dog
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Old 12-26-2012, 05:03 AM   #5
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Dang guys, way to temper my curiosity when there's no way possible I can watch this. Looks like I'll have to infect my family with interest instead.
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Old 12-26-2012, 05:21 PM   #6
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This film. This fucking film. A waterfall flowed from my face that day.

What a great film. Made me want to get an Akita, something I'm still strongly considering when the time comes.
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Old 12-26-2012, 05:52 PM   #7
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Seen it too, quite some time ago already.
Really touching story, and the loyalty of that dog, just wow...
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Old 12-26-2012, 07:52 PM   #8
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Ah, so there was a basis for Koromaru in Persona 3. Interesting.
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Old 12-27-2012, 05:00 PM   #9
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I was fucking Niagra D:

Also your mother is an awful liar. An awful, awful liar. Saying this movie is "in-between" is like calling Jimi Hendrix "pretty good at the guitar".
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Old 12-27-2012, 08:46 PM   #10
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Something that's been bugging me. Hachi looks like an Akita, but akita are reputed to be large dogs, whereas Hachi is adorably small. Is Richard Gere just a giant, or is he a puppy in that shot?
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Old 12-27-2012, 09:27 PM   #11
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Puppy in that shot.
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