Review: Tengoku no Honya~Koibi - Heaven's Bookstore~The Light of Love

天国の本屋~恋火 (Tengoku no Honya~Koibi - Heaven's Bookstore~The Light of Love)

Category:	Movies
Genre:	Romance

Japanese movie
Original Japanese title: 天国の本屋~恋火 (Tengoku no Honya~Koibi)
English title: Heaven's Bookstore (The Light of Love)

Cast:

Yuko Takeuchi (竹内結子) in a dual role as Shoko Hiyama (桧山翔子) and Kanako Nagase (長瀬香夏子)
Tetsuji Tamayama (玉山鉄二) as Kenta Machiyama (町山健太)

Synopsis: (I will make the synopsis in chronological order of events, unlike the order they were presented in the movie.)

Kenta Machiyama, as a child, was brought by his mother on a piano concert by the celebrated pianist Shoko Hiyama. At the end of the performance, the young Kenta went to the backstage to personally meet her. But as Shoko saw the boy in the backstage, she thought that he was just a missing child so she brought him over the piano and played a piece to him over and over again until his mother found him. This inspired Kenta to become a pianist himself.

At that time, Shoko has promised to marry her fiance, Mr. Takimoto (瀧本). Mr. Takimoto, on his on right has been famous over their town as a brilliant pyrotechnician. He is the only known maker of the "恋する花火 (koisuru hanabi)" or the "loving fireworks", a special Japanese-style firework that were traditionally the grand finale of the town's annual summer firework display. The firework has been legendary known to bring lovers together hence the name. Shoko had been inspired of Mr. Takimoto's work so she decided to compose piano pieces-one for each of the ten firework display to be launched by Mr. Takimoto. She had already composed the first nine pieces and she was on her way to start the last.

Soon Mr. Takimoto was overjoyed and brought his fiancee, Shoko to the place where he was preparing his fireworks. Unfortunately, his fireworks got fire accidentally and caused a terrible explosion. As a result, Shoko had one of her ears damaged, thus, lost its hearing which meant that she would not be able to play piano as gracefully as before. Mr. Takimoto got sad and then decided to stop making fireworks. Days passed and Shoko got hospitalized due to a certain sickness. Every time, she watched by the hospital window hoping to see her love's "loving fireworks", but to no avail. Poor Shoko died without seeing the fireworks and the sole maker.

Now, Kenta works as a pianist. Unfortunately, it seemed that he has no enough motivation making him not to perform at his best. As a consequence, he got fired. So much depressed by his termination, he went to a pub and drank all his way until he woke up the following morning.

To his surprise, he found himself in a bookstore. To surprise him more, he found himself on his first day of part-time work in Heaven's bookstore. Although he wasn't able to believe at first, the bookstore manager explained to him everything. Kenta is not yet dead. He was just hired to do part-time work in the bookstore. Thus, he will still be able to come back to earth. Also, in reality, people have 100 years to live. Suppose a person lives 80 years on earth. After death, the person will live his remaining 20 years in heaven. After which, all of his memories of his previous life on earth and in heaven will be erased in preparation of his or her rebirth on earth as another person. An apparent problem is when a person outlives the 100-year limit. A simple explanation will be bypassing heaven and be reborn directly on earth. A still confused Kenta roamed around heaven and to his amazement, found heaven so different from the common concept of heaven. In heaven, there are towns, shops and homes. People look the same age as of their death and never get old. Obviously, it is very difficult (though not impossible) to meet people who were close to you in your previous life.

On earth, Shoko has one niece who looks exactly like her. Kanako Nagase, the daughter of Shoko's sister, is one of the organizers of this year's summer festival. As a finale for the fireworks display, she wanted to bring back the ever famous "loving fireworks". But she came into trouble as there was only one person who knows how to make it-Mr. Takimoto. And as much as Kanako pleaded to Mr. Takimoto to make the fireworks, Mr. Takimoto declined.

So Kenta eventually got used to his new environment and started his job. He was first asked to read a book to a woman. While reading the book, Kenta noticed some musical notes written on one of the pages. As he was returning the book to the woman, he recognized her as the pianist Shoko. He told her how she inspired him to become a pianist. Shoko requested him to play her piano at home and Kenta also requested Shoko in return to play. But to his regret, Shoko told him about the firework accident and how she became unable to play the piano again.

On their next meeting, Shoko disclosed to Kenta that she used to compose piano pieces in correspondence to Mr. Takimoto's firework displays. Kenta revealed to Shoko that he is not yet dead and his part-time work is about to end, which will mean that he will go back soon. He requested to Shoko that they work on completing the last piano piece. As they completed the last piece, entitled "永遠 (Eien)" (Eternity), Shoko showed to Kenta all of her nine other works.

It was then revealed that Mr. Takimoto was blaming himself for the sadness and death of Shoko, so he stopped making fireworks. Kanako told Mr. Takimoto that her aunt never blamed him and instead, never gave up hoping that she would see him launch his fireworks again. Having said this, Kanako left everything for Mr. Takimoto to ponder about.

The day came for Kenta to go back to earth. Kenta was brought to the same spot where the fireworks display are being held, plus a piano on the grass. The last fireworks were launched without any trace of Mr. Takimoto, which made Kanako so sad. But as the people were about to go home after watching the fireworks, the trademark red lights flared up in the pitch black sky which were quickly recognized by everyone as the comeback of the "loving fireworks". Kenta remembered Shoko and played "Eternity" on the piano. Kanako ran to the location of the "loving fireworks". She saw there Mr. Takimoto and Kenta, playing the piano. Kanako recognized the melody of "Eternity", being it a work of her aunt and asked Kenta how come he knew the piece. Kenta, surprised to see a girl looking exactly as Shoko, responded "We had been together before. Would you believe?" Kanako answered a very sweet smile.

Review:

The first thing to be noticed here is the depiction of heaven, for Christian like me, the movie's concept of heaven made a very obvious deviation. In relation to this, I raised a question as to why Shoko still experiences ear pains while she is already in heaven. Again, this is in contradiction to the traditional heaven that we know.

Next to this is the way they put back the part-timers back to earth. To my understanding, several days had already passed after Kenta getting fired from work until the day of the fireworks display. Or perhaps, this time difference between heaven and earth is another glitch not explained in detail in the movie. Other than those that I mentioned, the story sounded well to me.

With regards to acting, I laud Yuko Takeuchi's portrayal of two roles. Most people may mistake the two roles as being played by two different actresses as they had too different personalities. Shoko was also made to look more mature than Kenta and Kanako. I also liked Tetsuji Tamayama's acting especially during the times that he was still puzzled about him being in heaven. Another plus is that both Takeuchi and Tamayama can both play the piano.

The locations used are so nice the heaven was presented as a very peaceful place. In the story, there are many shifts between heaven and earth, and between the past and the present but these shifts are very easy to recognize. The soundtrack also provided the appropriate atmosphere especially for depicting heaven.

A knowledge of Japanese culture may be necessary to fully understand the story and the movie. Several aspects of Japanese life and culture are depicted in the film. Examples of which are the summer fireworks display, working part-time, playing musical instruments (as in almost every Japanese knows how to play a particular musical instrument), parents having a say to what their children do, and the like.

I, as still a beginner in learning how to play the piano, was able to fully appreciate the story and the movie. The movie will also touch people who were feeling so burdened with the life they are living now. It will give them an inspiration to keep persevering.

(This is the first Japanese movie that I watched and reviewed, aside from the horror film "The Ring" which I watched about two years ago.)