Yoji Yamada's a clever guy, because any movie about the wonders of movies made after 1988 is going to get compared to Cinema Paradiso. So Yamada makes Cinema Paradiso the first movie that really gets highlighted in The Rainbow Seeker. You get to see characters in The Rainbow Seeker watching characters in Cinema Paradiso, and characters in Cinema Paradiso watch characters in other movies, of course. It's funny, but also touching, because it's Cinema Paradiso and that music is moving in any context.
The layering also prepares you for Yamada eventually celebrating his own Tora-san series, and tributing the lead actor, Kiyoshi Atsumi, who passed away the year The Rainbow Seeker came out. Ordinarily, a director heralding their own stuff would come off as pretentious (a character even describes the first Tora-san movie as a masterpiece), but Yamada wrote and directed nearly 50 of those films, and most are pretty great, so he's earned the right. Plus the celebration of Kiyoshi Atsumi is heartfelt and a strong tribute.
As for the rest of the film? It's two hours and too long. Parts meander, but for every scene that goes on too long, there's a sequence that's either funny or moving. Narrative? Not really there. It's just a mish-mash of themes Yoji Yamada has already explored thoroughly in his other stuff, but with The Rainbow Seeker feeling like the cinematic equivalent of a greatest hits album, I think it just works enough. I also love Yamada's extensive body of work and seeing him take a victory lap (while also paying tribute to his favorite leading man) was enjoyable enough for me. Maybe other people will wonder what all the fuss is about, and even a fanatic like myself thought it was a bit long. But the stuff that works really works, and it's just a nice movie that was a good way to spend two hours, but could've been an amazing way to spend one-and-a-half hours.
