Time Traveller

It is a pretty solid mash of romance and drama with sci-fi. I usually fall asleep in romance movie or find those movies a bit hard to watch with all the lovely-dovely stuff like the Twilight movies. But in this case, I was entertained because this movie actually moves on a brisk pace and kept me in suspense.

The story: Riisa Naka acts as a goofy but cute girl, Akari whose mother had an accident. She is being told to travel to the year 1972 to convey a message to someone her mother likes. Well, the travelling antidote helps her to travel through time. This movie is not supposed to be realistic so suspend your belief because later when the slight twist is revealed as the mystery person whom Akari's mother wants her to tell him a message finally appears, it will become a little far-fetched. Anyway, during the time finding the mystery guy, Akari slowly falls in love with a director, Ryota who helps her and lets her stay in his house. The story is predictable, but the movie moves in such a brisk pace with suspense that I would not mind but to go along with Akari's adventure. Riisa Naka does a pretty good job in acting like goofy but cute girl with some priceless moments. And she has a likable face too. I can't wait to see her in Zebra man 2.

Overall: It is a pretty entertaining Japanese movie. No idea where all the negative critic reviews in Singapore come from but this movie may entertain if you are willing to suspend belief and go along with the adventure. It may be bashed up by blockbusters in Christmas but it should be worth a watch on DVD.

This is the fourth version of Toki o kakeru shojo (Girl who leaped through time) that was made for the big screen, and is truest to being the continuous story to the movie by the same title made in 1983 starring Tomoyo Harada as Kazuko Yoshiyama.

Akari Yoshiyama (Riisa Naka) is the daughter of Kazuko Yoshiyama (Narumi Yasuda). Kazuko is the original girl who've leaped through time 38 years ago in 1972. Although Kazuko's memory was erased about the incident, she still subliminally remembers about Kazuo Fukamachi (Kanji Ishimatsu). One day Kazuko falls victim to an automobile accident, and becomes comatose. Akari decides to leap back to the 1970s to find Fukamachi to help her mother.

Although the story follows the original movie well, the production is rather coarse and details and the visuals of each scenes are crude, lowering the visual experience of the entire movie. Maybe it's because this is the debut feature length movie for director Masaaki Taniguchi. Compared to the original that was directed by the great Nobuhiko Oobayashi, the production falls short in almost all details. I wish the casting was better as well ( except for Riisa Naka). The actors just don't catch the mood of the movie - it's supposed to be a bitter sweet romantic movie, but I just couldn't get any romantic feelings from the actors.

I give this version 4.5/10, and hope that someone will remake this version with quality that matches the original 1983 version.

This sequel to the terrible 1983 movie The Little Girl Who Conquered Time has many of the flaws of its predecessor. They both look like inexpensive TV movies (although TV movies look better than they did in 1983), and they both have saccharine scores. But while the 1983 movie moved at a crawl and was headache-inducing in its stupidity, this movie has a lively pace and more interesting characters,and is considerably less absurd.

Unlike the 1983 movie or the excellent 2006 animated film that was also a sequel to the original story, Time Traveller does not involve a teenager hopping around through time. Instead, it involves a teenager making one hop, to 1974. The movie has some familiar 70s fashions, but a lot of the 70s details went over my head, I suspect, because I have no idea what Japan looked like back then.

What makes the movie stand out in spite of its poor production values is how the characters' emotional lives were brought out so sharply and affectingly. The movie has likable characters and they have relatable problems.

By most of my criteria for film making, Time Traveller is at best mediocre. But it's one of those B movies that somehow work, creating a better experience than should have been possible. I'm not saying it's a must see, but it is a very likable little film.

I had seen a preview of the movie and had it on the wish list. I finally had some time and decided to watch the movie.

At first, I thought I made a mistake as it started with Japanese racing much faster than the sparse English subtitles. There was background sound that did not match the pictorial scenes. For the first ten minutes or so I was sure I made a mistake. Then the movie and the acting and the story started to show through. I completely forgot that I was reading subtitles. I started kibitzing. Many stories are very transparent and you can anticipate the next step. This one was fresh at every turn.

A woman (Narumi Yasuda) who invents a time travel liquid finds herself in a coma from an accident. She gains consciousness just long enough to send her teenage daughter Akari Yoshiyama (Riisa Naka) on a mission from 2010 to 1972 to hold a chemistry student Masamichi Hasegawa (Munetaka Aoki) to his promise. Through some mishaps and a series of coincidences, we get a much more intricate story than just time traveling. The well-done ending even though surprising could not be any other way.

The live action version of "Toki wo kakeru shoujo" is lots of fun, and it can stand on its own, even if you haven't watched the anime version.

The story is simple enough. Akari's mother is doing some secret research. When she has an accident, she tells Akari that it is a time traveling formula, and asks her to go back in time and find a boy she knew from high school. Akari goes to her mother's workplace and drinks the formula, even if she doesn't really believe it will work. But then she finds herself in the past. But things are not as they should be...

"Toki wo kakeru shoujo" is a charming movie, that has a not overly complicated plot, but very interesting characters, with whom it is easy to fall in love with and care for. The acting is quite good, and brings the story close to the viewer. You will care for Akari and the people she meets in her time traveling adventures. It is actually difficult to make a story fascinating, but everyone involved in this movie makes it feel easy. It is a little bit slow in some moments, specially close to the end, but that is not much of a problem when you don't want to see those characters leave you.

Totally worth watching.