GamerTab That was an excellent one.

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

esthiaque This is one of my all time favourite films. The acting is good through out by all but Toni Collette really steals the show. I thought the slow pacing was perfect. I thought the music was exceptional. It burns in to your soulHowever if your expecting the standard totally mismatched man and woman who fall in love story which has already been done as comedy a hundred times - well I suppose it is but no at a deeper level this is quite different.Is the film racist? Who knows, maybe, not being Japanese or Aborigine I couldn't say.This should be viewed as cinematic poetry so in that light all the criticisms that have been made in other reviews about plot holes and unlikely occurrences, whilst not invalid, don't apply.

SnoopyStyle Geologist Sandy Edwards (Toni Collette) is stuck with babysitting Hiromitsu Tachibana around the Australian desert looking at mining operations. He's the son of the boss of a giant Japanese conglomerate. She's hoping to sell them her computer program. He's demanding, clueless and insecure. She's loud. There is a cultural and language barrier. They get stuck out in the middle of the desert. They fall for each other and then it all ends.Hiromitsu is off-putting. If the movie is simply about them ending up in a life altering friendship, this would be a great movie. The cultural differences are a little too silly at times. The romance is really silly. These two characters have so little chemistry that they may have negative chemistry. It is to the credit of Toni Collette that it works in any fashion at all. After the "incident", she gets to stretch out and the movie turns into something more.

Daniel Banks My Review of Japanese Story: After seeing this film, I felt a sense of how powerful a relationship can grow in a matter of days. Mixed in with cultural differences and non-verbal's, this film does an excellent job of showing how two people from two diverse sides of the world can get closer than most couples who live in the same town. The acting is believable and effective with each character showing their thoughts and views through their body language and actions. There is distinct, and precise direction in this film and I applaud Sue Brooks for that. She has made a Romance that truly stands out and surprises most with unexpected events. Some may see it hard to like our two protagonists Hiromitsu and Sandy from the start, but as the film progresses, you do start to care and learn about them. Some of these characters are willing to break oaths in order to achieve those desires, while another may break standard rules. There are character arcs in this story and it really is worth watching. Coming from someone who recently wrote, lit, shot and directed a film with no dialog this film does non-verbal communication right. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the romance/drama genre.

kevinmontemayor89 Japanese Story is an interesting portrayal of how people can find oneself in unlikely situations. But the main ending point will confuse people on why someone needs to die for the screen writers to convey their points across to their audiences. And do the Japanese men commonly take rumspringas to Australia to sow their wild oats with Aussie women in order to become a better husband and father. This comment comes from the note Hiromitsu leaves for Sandy summing up how she and the desert landscape made him a better person. His wife could sense more than just a business trip occurs out in the nothingness of the desert. I feel like it's a nice prequel to Hall Pass but without the happy ending like what happened to Owen Wilson's character. Hiromitsu scored in Australia in order to put with his boring life in Japan for the rest of his days. I feel the screenplay failed in finding a less abrupt way to causally having Hiromitsu fly off into the eastern sunset and settled for an easy way out in his death.