To love is to be of service in Kôji Fukada’s film “The Real Thing”. Adapted from Mochiru Hoshisato’s 10 volume manga “Living Game”, the three and half hour, two part segmented drama chronicles the intimate and tragic love affairs of two people with saviour complexes. To their own detriment, both Tsuji Kazumichi(Win Morisaki) and Hayama Ukiyo (Kaho Tsuchimura) cycle through relationships with those who need affection and care most; often losing themselves in their partner’s healing. Trapped in this rhythm, both characters only find love reciprocated after watching each other complete their own full rotation from damsel to knight, and back again.
Released as an Official Selection at Cannes in 2020, Fukada’s “The Real Thing (Honki no shirushi: Gekijôban)” is a character epic, showing the elasticity of ones adaptability to destinies boundless impact. The film is filled with actors whose range was seemingly required limitless to play characters whose actions are motivated solely by their fixation on serving their own vices, only to have those desires uprooted by fates interference.
Destiny strikes at a corner store when Tsuji, a worker for Onda Toys and Fireworks, spots a toy with its package ripped open in Ukiyo’s shopping cart. As his impulse to help others weighs too heavily, he takes it upon himself to replace her damaged toy. First hesitant, unsure of his motives, Ukiyo stands like a wilting flower fearful of the slightest breeze as Tsuji reaches into her basket to replace the tiny colourful toy. Though weary of his gesture, Ukiyo being in an unfamiliar area, shyly asks Tsuji for directions. Moments after they go their separate ways, leaving their uneventful interaction, Tsuji by foot, Ukiyo nervously behind the wheel of a car, Tsuji’s stride is interrupted by the alarming ringing of an incoming train matched with Ukiyo’s screams of panic.Tsuji turns to the sight of Ukiyo’s still car sitting atop train tracks, the railroad’s blinking red alarm light illuminating her shocked expression as she sits stuck behind the wheel. Tsuji sprints to the car, putting all of the strength in his body into pushing the car forward out of the incoming trains treacherous path. Little did Tsuji know that by saving the life of Ukiyo, fate would sentence him to a lifetime dedicated to her.
In the weeks following the accident Tsuji hears of nothing from Ukiyo, though she haunts his thoughts. He returns to his mundane work life, where he dedicates his days to taking orders from his superiors. His easy going, softly moulded demeanour attracts people to him; his male co-workers trust and respect him, while his female co-workers seek affection from him. Unable to say no, for his innate need to please others takes lead of all his actions, Tsuji finds himself in a love triangle with two coworkers, both of which he has no desire for. The two women, Hosokawa Naoko (Kei Ishibashi) and Fujitani Minako (Akari Fukunaga) are ignorant of each other’s intimate relationship with Tsuji. Fully crazed with their love for him, and all he provides to their fantasy of an idealistic romantic partner, they treat him as if he is a rope to pull in their blindfolded game of tug a war. Though only a casual counterpart in both relationships, Tsuji never rejects either of these women’s romantic advancements, believing that his presence in their lives is an ingredient to the formula of their happiness.
After years of routinely providing care to these women, never having loved them, nor truly committing to them, only ever being a physical source of comfort in their lives, Tsuji begins to feel complacent. His craving for excitement and purpose begins to overwhelm him, then, just as suddenly as before, Ukiyo reappears in his life. In a helpless condition, financially indebted to a mob, homeless and filled with fear, she appears to Tsuji like an angel fallen from grace. He becomes obsessed with being the solution to all of her problems, paying her debts, fighting her battles, running to her at any point of trouble; he falls under the charm of her frailty.
Producing Ukiyo’s weakness are the burdens of her past; once the white knight in her own love triangle, she now holds the traumas and hardships of her past lovers. Only seen to them as their source of emotional support, they mistake their dependancy of Ukiyo for love and endlessly seek her affection as a type of healing servitude. Just as Ukiyo begins to find strength in herself with the help of Tsuji, these men return to her life, claiming her as their own.
Being the reflection of Tsuji, Ukiyo too is driven by her inner need to help others, so when these men seek her assistance she easily falls back into her previous role of saviour. It is when she reclaims this role of caregiver, leaving Tsuji behind, that she shifts his position in the cycle from knight to damsel. Left with no one to care for Tsuji is purposeless, doomed to aimlessly roam in his desperate state of heartache until Ukiyo returns seeking his love.
This two pieced film adaption works as a mirror of these two characters, Tsuji and Ukiyo are each others karma. They are the only people who ever enter the other’s life looking to help them when they are at their most desperate points. In “The Real Thing” every character is unable to control their impulses, determined to feel a sense of accomplishment and belonging, both Tsuji and Ukiyo are the only two whose actions are always filled with pure intent. Win Morisaki’s and Kaho Tsuchimura’s ability to stretch themselves out emotionally throughout “The Real Thing”, to take their characters step-by-step through their journey between being a high functioning saviour type to a desperate tortured soul, is a cinematic experience well worth sitting through a nearly 4 hour long film.
Score: (B)
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.