Masahiro Kobayashi returns with "Koufuku Shiawase"

by Chris MaGee

Here's a film that's got me excited. First off, I bowled over by Masahiro Kobayashi's 2005 film "Bashing" that starred Fusako Urabe as a Japanese woman who had been taken hostage in the Middle East only to return to face a hostile reception from her fellow Japanese. Second off, I have been bowled over for years by the performances of Ryo Ishibashi, particularly in Rokuro Mochizuki's "Another Lonely Hitman", Takeshi Kitano's "Kids Return" and Daisuke Tengan's "The Most Beautiful Night in the World". So to see that both were in attendance at a press conference at the Shinemato Theatre in Roppongi on Saturday to announce the completion of a new film is going to get my heart racing a bit.

The film in question is "Koufuku Shiawase (The Happiness)", the story of a vagrant (Ishibashi) who arrives in a town in Hokkaido. With only a threadbare suit, an old pair of sneakers and a bag containing all his worldly possessions the proprietors of a local convenince store (played by Jun Murakami and Akemi Sakurai) taske pity on the man and bring him in. It's this chance encounter that leads to a budding romance between Ishibashi's vagrant and Sakurai's clerk, a romance that draws us deeper into the history of these two individuals.

During the press conference that took place before the screening Kobayashi explained how it was hard to find financing for the project and even when that was accomplished and the film was made it still took three years to get a theatrical release. Well, here's to small miracles and to the hope that North American audiences will get a chance to see the result of this collaboration between to great talents.

Check out the official website for "Koufuku Shiawase (The Happiness)" here.