CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

filmnathan It has been almost 6 years since I saw this film, yet this film can stick with me and still offer me things.After a tragic incident of violence, a bus driver tries to find two other teen-aged survivors, a brother and sister. The sparse black and white camera work provide an insight into the bleak emotional landscape as they just stumble through as "walking dead". Having lost a father, I can identify with the characters. What is touching is the lack of communication and dialogue between the actors (whic includes the lead of the Japanese "Shall We Dance" ). Yet there is love and communication made even by just the thumping on bus walls. Words fail them.The camera work is bleak yet stunning in composition and texture. Minimal yet just enough to feel the principals trying to find meaning in life. One can also speak of the Japanese economic downturn and the resulting introspective dramatic films such as Hirokazu's "After Life". If have experienced grief or if you'd like to find some insight into it, this may be a film. It seemed shorter than the four hours, but you are forewarned.

RichieTennenbaum I bought a cheap copy of Eureka from ebay (I couldn't get the nice UK version because I don't have a region-free DVD player), and was utterly transfixed by it--what a terrific film! However, through some awful twist of fate, the disc is flawed and I missed the ending of the movie. I'm hoping that I only missed the last few minutes, but I'm really p*ssed off nonetheless. I know I was near the end of the film from the chapter menu. Here's the last thing I saw: (SPOILER AHEAD) Makoto and Kazue stop at what seems to be some sort of ceremonial garden. The two previous scenes saw Makoto calling his ex-wife's beauty parlor and then hanging up, and then Kazue forming words with seashells on the bus. It looks like Makoto, having another coughing fit, collapses. thats the last thing i can see before the DVD skips back to the menu screen. If you're seen the movie, please help! thanks!

Michael Kerpan (kerpan) Eureka (Shinji Aoyama, 2000) (spoilers)Together with "Gaichu", this film shows Aoi Miyazaki to be one of the finest child actresses of all time. (Having now achieved teen "idol" status in Japan, will she fritter away her talent?). Her character is virtually wordless in this over 3.5 hour long film, which makes her accomplishment even more impressive.The film tells of a brother and sister, who along with a bus driver (played by Koji Yakusho, perhaps Japan's best actor today), are the sole survivors of a bus-jacking and mass killing. Not only the children are traumatized by the incident, but the notoriety and disruption leads to the collapse of the family. Left alone after the death of their father, the children withdraw from the world. Yakusho, whose own life has fallen apart as well, also flees -- to parts unknown -- for almost a year. He returns to find (not surprisingly), his wife has left the extended family home, to return to work in a big city. He and the children are drawn together by their mutual catastrophe -- and he (along with an older cousin of the kids) try to draw them out of their shell. Matters are complicated by a string of serial killings taking place in their area. Yakusho buys a beat-up bus -- and carries them out of the scene of their unhappy past, but it isn't so easy to escape the shadow the past cast over them.The acting here is superb (and not just that of Aoi Miyaki and Koji Yakusho) -- and the monochromatic cinematography is equally wonderful. For me, the 3.5 hours passed quite swiftly.

Simon Booth Some people have a disliking for Japanese cinema because the movies tend to be slow paced, minimalistic. If you're one of them - skip EUREKA is all you need to know. The movie moves along at a snail's pace on Sunday - at 90 minutes most movies are just coming to their explosive and or dramatic climax, but at that point I was still wondering what Eureka was about. 2 hours later the movie finally finishes - and I was still wondering what it was all about. EUREKA is a movie of epic length, that raises other challenging questions like "Why is it 3.5 hours long?", "Why is it black and white?", "Is this all going somewhere?" and "Is it nearly finished yet?". Clearly director Shinji Aoyama wants his movie to make us think. And in 3.5 hours of black and white imagery and minimal dialogue, your mind certainly does have ample opportunity to wander. Maybe I should have checked the "Director's Statement" that is included on the UK DVD before watching the movie. Then I'd have known what he was trying to say, and could have spent my time deciding if he said it effectively instead. Whether that would have been more fun or less I don't know though. Not to say that I didn't enjoy watching EUREKA - for most of the run time I did. It's very well acted, has some good cinematography and is generally quite unusual. I'd have preferred it to have been shorter though, or had more going on - even colour photography would have helped to keep my attention on the screen with a little less effort. I do think it's a good movie though, but... it just didn't need to be 3.5 hours to make its point or build its characters. Or maybe it did need 3.5 hours to do that, but Shinji Aoyama used his time badly - because at the end I still didn't really have a grasp on who the characters were 'deep down', or what the point of sharing their story with us was. Perhaps it's just that it's a movie aimed for better minds than mine to truly appreciate though. Certainly the length and style are going to keep any hopes of mainstream appreciation at bay.