Japanese audiences love to cry — hence the decades-long stream of films featuring the terminally ill. The current outpouring, however, seems to be a byproduct of Japan's aging society and improved standards of medical care.
Back in the day, movies here were seldom devoted to one character's long, losing fight with a dreaded disease — be it cancer or Alzheimer's. Now, however, that sort of struggle has become all too common in real life, and something of a formula on screen.
In his new drama "Fufu Fufu Nikki" ("Till Death Do Us What?"), Koji Maeda turns that formula on its head, much as he did in his 2011 feature debut "Konzen Tokkyu" ("Cannonball Wedlock"), a romantic comedy whose mismatched pair are a narcissistic beauty (Yuriko Yoshitaka) and a doughy-bodied baker (Kenta Hamano). Though last on her list of boyfriends, the baker possesses a baffling self-confidence. That is, he is the opposite of the usual socially awkward hero in Japanese rom-coms.