Lovers who say goodbye in the last reel exist in Hollywood films -- remember Rick and Ilsa in "Casablanca"? -- but far more common are variations of Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard's happy stroll into the sunset in "Modern Times."
In Japanese films, however, the opposite was long true -- an inheritance from kabuki and other older dramatic forms, perhaps, but one in tune with audiences' taste for the tragic.
Women, particularly, loved to weep over stories of tragic love, in which two hearts that were meant to be one were pulled asunder.