Always: Sunset on Third Street

Beautiful, simple and fantastic movie about everyday difficulties and joys. Saw it twice and wept as much the second time. Although over two hours long there was never a second of boredom. Extra cred for making Tokyo in 1958 so realistic, still without skyscrapers and metros! Characters was very well chosen. Even the kids are real professionals here!

The main plot is about two stories waved together skillfully. A young "has-been" novelist meets a young boy who was abandoned and is been forced to take him in for the time being. A girl from the countryside takes a job in the big city, Tokyo, at what she thinks is a big automobile company (Suzuki auto). But nothing is what it seems! It's about love beyond family ties, but never the less easy.

This piece of great film work took Japan by storm, and once I saw it realized why it had turned out that way. The film is immensely nostalgic and filled with bits of memorable moments that would send you bursting out with laughter while tears are still continuing to fill up your eyes.

The plot is austerely simple, yet the characters are smartly introduced and thoroughly elaborated. It's ultimately easy for us to believe that the Third Street community and those characters are real. The relationships between them are reasonably developed and eventually leads to a powerful and heart-wrenching-yet-warmly ending.

This is not a regular tear-jerker. Emotional scenes are not forced in as in any other movies, but effectively and strategically put into the right places, resulting in a gradual and natural emotional building.

The music and photography are flawless, and tremendously help with the holistic ambiance of the film. Acting is also impeccable.

Truly a worth-seeing gem for movie lovers. Another delicate Asian craft which has all the qualities that Hollywood mainstream movies still lack of.

I had the chance to see this film because a friend brought the DVD back from Japan. Otherwise I don't think I would ever have had the opportunity to watch it.

The cover of the DVD says "Over 270 million people have cried" over this film. I don't doubt that for a moment. This movie is funny, serious, sweet, suspenseful, hilarious and totally satisfying.

The special effects are beautifully rendered and reminded me of what Steven Spielberg might have done if he were making this film. The setting of Tokyo in 1958 is seamlessly recreated, as characters in this film are placed into footage of a 1950's Japanese film.

I would love to know how they did this, and I'm going to research it. As soon as I find out I'll update this post.

Everything about this film is romantic. Don't miss it.

This movie is based on 2 things, technology and nostalgia.

Computer graphics reappear the scenery of Tokyo 40 years before,it's so wonderful and filled with humanity.Current Tokyo city might be not so beautiful and humanity lost anywhere,so almost scenery evokes nostalgia.

Although the story is not so rich, fine episodes are often planned. The character of the doctor who lost wife and a child in war is excellent.The figure of the Japanese who were gazing at the future being captured in the past for a while, calls sympathy.

If you have never been to Tokyo City in 1960's,you can go now by seeing this movie.

While Takashi Yamazaki may be guilty of manipulation in wringing out the nostalgia-induced sentimentality off his viewers' hearts and eyes, it's not like those potential tears are totally undeserved in the oh-so romantic rendering of a bygone Tokyo. "Always - Sunset on Third Street," adapted from Ryohei Saigan's manga, has all the adornment of schmaltz as it follows a number of the Tokyo working class in 1958 as, following the war and backdropped by a being rebuilt Tokyo Tower, they steadily struggle through their lives to a better future. Yamazaki, though, roots his film in an innocent glorification of the community striving for a common goal as seen through warm sepia tones and golden hues.

Among the multitude of the characters, Mutsuno Hoshino (Maki Horikita, who I just have to say remains as one of my favorite Japanese actors) is a recent junior high graduate who goes to Tokyo dreaming of a job at a prestigious automobile company only to find herself working as a repair woman in a car repair shop owned by Norifumi Suzuki (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi). Across the street is Ryunosuke Chagawa (Hidetaka Yoshioka), a candy shop owner struggling to make it as a serious novelist and makes up for his literary shortcomings by regularly submitting juvenile stories for a boys' magazine. Hiromi Ishizaki (Koyuki), a sake bar owner with a shady past, receives Junnosuke (Kenta Suka), a boy abandoned by his single mother, to be left in her care and, in turn, she leaves the boy to Ryunosuke.

Taking place in a broadly idealistic and exaggeratedly whimsical parallel reality, Yamazaki may often succumb to contrived melodramatic trappings and a few missed comedic notes, yet his relentlessly effervescent tale possesses absorbing set pieces and a contagious joie de vivre none so more affectingly displayed by the film's closing shot. An unabashedly giddy fairy tale, "Always" is an ode and a love letter to the city's halcyon days as shared by its inhabitants who are slowly rising from its past and, slowly but surely, to the age of TV, refrigerator, and Coca-Cola.