User Reviews

Hankyu Railways is not the usually kind of film. It is a film about life experiences, the ups and downs, the hope, the miracle and the people around us. The film possesses multiple plot lines and somehow they will all interlink together through a 15 minute train ride on the Hankyu Railways. The obvious flaw about this film is that it requires more verbal and obvious expressions to express out its underlying message in place of subtlety and cleverness. In doing so, it seems like the audience is reading the film like a book and thus losing some lasting effect that it could be capable of. Still, Hankyu is an extremely well-meaning drama that depicts how people deal with ups and downs in life. How someone you randomly sit next to on the train, can have an influence in your life and decision. It is by all means a positive film and provides hope for those that require it. Some stories are more interesting than others, in particular of interest will be the story of the good girl (played by the very pretty Erika Toda – see pictures below) being in a violent relationship with a total jerk and the main story of a woman going to her cheating fiancé's wedding in a bridal white dress. There are some moments in the film that seems real and others that seem to be more manufactured and laboured. Still, Hanky Railways is by no means a terrible film, but rather it is what you call an uneven well-meaning film that isn't executed as well as it can be. All in all, Hankyu Railways does convey its message out even if it is a tad too obvious and its well-meaning and positive nature provides people who are facing difficulties in their life with some sort of hope. There is a quote in the film that I wanted to share about cutting the losses in life: "you can cry as much as need to, but you need to know when to stop the tears from continuing." Overall, the film is not bad, but not great…

Neo rates it 6.5/10

• www.thehkneo.com

Kinda hard to recommend this one. Basically it's a soap opera, set on public transit in Kobe. A half-dozen or so stories intertwine, and vignettes range from the trite-ish (eg. a girl is ashamed of her last name; a group of obnoxious middle-aged women function as a farcical Greek chorus) to the heartfelt, even heart-rending (in particular, an eight- year-old girl trying to cope with persistent bullying by classmates).

Unfortunately most of what happens strains credulity--particularly considering that the Japanese simply do not inject themselves with any regularity into the lives and problems of total strangers. Nor are they prone to be as emotional in public.

To sum up, Hankyu is a highly uneven soap opera which does shed light on modern Japanese customs and mores, but you have to wade through a lot of melodrama to get to the better bits.