Millions of Japanese have become fans of things Korean, from weepy TV dramas to perky girl pop groups, since the start of the hanryu￣ ("Korean Wave") popular-culture invasion over a decade ago. Many of the younger generation, however, have only a hazy awareness, if that, of the dark period between 1910 and 1945 when Japan ruled Korea as a colony.
Banmei Takahashi's "Michi — Hakuji no Hito (Takumi: The Man Beyond Borders)," which exposes the inhumanity of that rule and celebrates the glories of traditional Korean ceramics, may not sell a lot of tickets to the hanryu￣ crowd, who are more interested in entertainment than history lessons.
I hope I'm mistaken: Takahashi, who got his start directing soft-core porn more than three decades ago, has since become a maker of historical dramas that earnestly attempt to get at the not always flattering truth about their subjects, be it a saintly Zen master ("Zen," 2009) or a violent radical sect ("Hikari no Ame [Rain of Light]," 2001). Like these earlier films, "Michi" is plodding and overwrought, but similarly sincere and instructive.