Finally, I had the time to watch a Japanese movie titled "Taiyou No Uta" which means a song for the sun the previous day after accumulating my hard drive for a while. It was a great movie all in all. Now that's what I call a true Asian movie. Simply great! I know, some will not agree to this, but to me that's what separate Asian movies from western movies. Of course, the pace of the story is quite slow(common for Asian movies). I guess that's how we Asians prefer it to be.
The story itself is great. It's not the typical love story between two individuals. It doesn't end in a fairy tale kind of way where the two lovers lived happily ever after in the end. The ending(spoiler warning) was kind of sad, but in a way it depicts what we would or some of us will really encounter in reality. The main character in this movie, a girl(Kaoru Amane) played by YUI, had a rare disease which prevented herself from living a normal life. She was inflicted with a disease called XP in short, which can be fatal when exposed to the sun. She lived her life strangely by sleeping during day time and only go out at night.This is a disease that cannot be treated by the use of modern medicine or through surgery. In other words it's incurable. This movie also showed how she was attracted to a guy who was in the beginning kind of confused of where to go and what to do with his life. Both characters went through drastic change after going through this brief relationship. The relationship they experienced draws out the goodness in both of them(an improvement in their characteristics in becoming a better person).
From this movie I was able to extract the value of living life to the fullest by enjoying every moments with your loved ones despite of the uncertainties that may befall us in the future. These are just some of my thoughts triggered by this movie. This is a movie not to be missed.
Before I forget, another thing that I like about this movie is where the sun symbolizes two things: bringing out the beauty in life(when the sun rises it warmth us with its sunshine and at the same time it brings life to every living things) on the other hand, it also kills life(if you put yourself in Kaoru's situation, the sun is a killer to her). For Kaoru, the sun doesn't shine life to her, but it takes life out of her. All this musings about the sun really reminds me of the effect of its rays to our skin. Ouch! If you've been in the sun for too long you might want to rejuvenate it. Chicago chemical peel might be the solution for you then.
Taiyou No Uta
