This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie had an impact on me like no other film had before. Two 14 year olds coming from abusive homes are forced to look at their lives and see where they plan on taking them. The main character, Yuichi Sumida, claims early in the film that he just wants to be ordinary. Keiko Shazawa happily agrees with him since she is infatuated with him. Neither of the teen's parents could care less about them. The girl's parents go as far to create a noose from which they want their daughter to commit suicide, since she is only a disappointment in their eyes. Yuichi and his mom run a boat shop which he runs on his own after she abandons him. His father shows up only to ask for money and abuse his son. The bad parenting in this film may be an exaggerated representation of Japenese culture, in how much pressure children are put under in order to succeed. The teens in this film have obviously given up on any dreams of success they may have once had. The Yakuza comes to collect the debt that Yuichi's father owes them and this pushes his mind to a point where he becomes confused and violent. After this point, the film takes a turn. The first third is filled with comedy - the scenes with Yuichi and Keiko fighting, I found the most amusing - but the second two thirds are dealing with dark subject matter. Things become more shocking and also more intriguing. Anger and that has been built up in Yuichi is let out in unhealthy, though sometimes helpful ways. He commits an act that he feels guilty about and isn't sure what to do, leading him to try to find himself in scenes that I found very powerful. The sorrow, frustration and hopelessness I saw on screen resonated with me in ways incomparable with any other works of fiction. To put it bluntly, Himizu is a coming-of-age story for angsty teens that aren't sure where their life is headed. By the way this isn't an insult, given how much I could relate.

They need to rewrite the synopsis for this maudlin, over-sentimental cryfest of a film. From the description, I was expecting something exciting like 'Natural Born Killers', 'Bonnie & Clyde' or even 'Baise Moi'. Hell, I would've even settled for a Japanese 'Thelma & Louise' but this movie failed to deliver the goods.If you like to see young teens cry & cry & cry & scream & cry & cry & scream & cry then this movie is for you. Bring a box of tissues, just don't expect to see what the synopsis promised.This was not an action film at all, just an implausible drama with a lot of verbal diatribe to waste your time away. If 14 year old teens really speak with that kind of maturity then I'll eat my shorts.They used to make silly cryfests like these in Hollywood back in the 30's and 40's. Why they chose to reprise the same shtick in Japan is beyond me. People go for this stuff? Even watching a fluorescent lamp flicker is more interesting than 'Himizu.' What a rip.

Some of you already know I'm a huge fan of Love Exposure, but I hadn't seen anything else from Sono until this, so I was greatly anticipating it. It's set in post-tsunami Japan, and this setting is not only a context but a very important part of the plot, perhaps too much so especially at the ending when the film turns a little into a moralizing or even propaganda piece, with the main character crying "Don't give up!" repeatedly while we see images of the ravages of the flood. I gotta say those last minutes moved me to the verge of tears though, but that has more to do with how it builds up and connects previous elements shown in the film in a rather messy way. But I think that's the Sono way, with quick shots and thoughts put together, unexpected transitions, poetry mixed up with violence, sometimes inscrutable characters... This film also has some powerful cinematography going for it, with thinned down and warm colors, probably with some filter involved or maybe just postproduction grading to create this beautiful effect. Also worthy of notice is the soundtrack, with pieces from Mozart and Barber that enhance the poignancy of the film. So in the end it's a tragic and also hopeful love story, with different situations involved that make true sense only towards the end. It has some disturbing scenes, with parents who want their children dead or people who want to kill other people in the street for no rational reason... Situations that are quite effective in portraying not only the material but also the moral and mental damages that can be caused by such an event as last year's tsunami. Still, it's no match to Love Exposure, and I don't think anything else from Sono is/will be.****

While not a terrible movie, Sumida & Keiko's dystopia where- in after killing his father who beats him up in drunken rages, Sumida embarks on a campaign of violence against evil-doers demonstrates a mismanagement of the time spent on different aspects of the plot.What really occurs, is that the violence between father and son is a surrogate for violence against women done by what are essentially psychotic individuals. This is easily seen in the completely superfluous knife fight over a transit-seat being offered to a pregnant woman. Although the unthinkable does not happen, the tension is sufficient to recognize that the director is "hung-up" on portraying unspeakable violence against the women of the movie.Nonetheless, it is not an overly bloody movie, but the subtitles are not sufficient to provide a proper understanding of the scene where the partially-clad woman with Japanese insults written on her body (in Japanese) -- hings such as "pig" and "bitch", who says "I do this by choice". In other words, she invites being called a "pig" as part of being the female in her relationship, where she literally walks around with a chain on her ankle.I would not go so far as to call the movie unwatchable in its treatment of women, although there were some loud "boos" at the screening I went to, eventually there was some applause at the end. To appreciate the movie, one must come to the understanding that each and every character in the movie is not just involved in a movie about angst, but is quite literally insane, or in the language of psychiatrists, "in a deep psychosis".I would not go so far as to call the director psychotic, but rather, lacking the plot time-management skill to convince us otherwise.Unless you're a psychiatrist in a super-max prison, this movie is not escapism, and the assertion that people in Japan need a cynical criticism of the "Let's go Japan!" rebuilding mantra in their media, that the director presents, can quite safely be tossed in the trash.My advice to the director: Move to Osaka.