Blue (2002)

• Year: 2002
• Released: 29 Mar 2003
• Country: Japan
• Adwords: 1 win & 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0326773/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blue
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/blue
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Japanese
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Runtime: 116 min
• Writer: Kiriko Nananan, Yuka Honcho
• Director: Hiroshi Ando
• Cast: Mikako Ichikawa, Manami Konishi, Asami Imajuku
• Keywords: adolescence,

	6.5/10
	100% – Critics
	87% – Audience

Blue Storyline

Quiet and introspective Kayako routinely has lunch on a rooftop with three of her friends that attend an all girls high school with her in a seaside town. One day she invites Masami Endo to join the group. As her friendship with Masami grows, she loses contact more and more with the others. She is impressed with Endo’s greater knowledge of music and art, and although Endo proclaims that she is insignificant with no aim in life, Kayako says that she wishes that she could be like her new friend. Their feelings deepen beyond friendship and she proclaims her love for Endo on a lonely beach. The two become physically intimate but when summer comes Masami disappears and Kayako learns that she has gone to Tokyo to meet a married man with whom she had an affair the year before. An abortion had led to her being suspended from school. Feeling betrayed when Masami returns and lies about where she has been, Kayako keeps to herself and starts painting a still life, emulating Cezanne paintings in one of Masami’s books. Although they reconcile and Kayako speaks of them going way to study together, her love of painting leads to her leaving for Tokyo alone to study art, while Masami remains behind. Masami sends a videotape showing a shot of the beach, and then the blue sea, proclaiming that unlike Kayako, this is all that she can do in an artistic sense.

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Blue Movie Reviews

A beautiful Japanese movie

When I watched this move, I felt that Japan is a beautiful country. Filmed in provincial cities of Niigata, and Takaoka (Toyama prefecture) Blue captures the lives of two high school girls from Spring to Autumn.

The movie is beautiful in many ways, but especially in the way each scenes are shot. Director Hiroshi Ando is a veteran of directing youth oriented movies, but also has an eye for sharp clean images.

Mikako Ichikawa who played Kayako Kirishima won the best actress award at the 24th International Movie Festival in Moscow with this movie.

The movie that’s written, and acted by Gen-X writer and actors has all the subdued feelings of that generation.

Both Mikako Ichikawa and Manami Konishi are models, and are unusually tall for Japanese women, Ichikawa hitting 5’7″, and Konishi at 5’6″ tall.

Both Ichikawa, and Konishi has successful career as actors, and are familiar faces in Japanese TV now.

I liked this movie for the beautiful imagery. The small stories that’s inserted as the scene changes were almost like moving poems. I wanted to see more of relation between Endo, and Kirishima but the movie just kept going without drastic change in the flow.

The movie is well crafted and is definitely worth seeing.

If you’re interested in visiting the areas that this movie was shot, here are the locations:

Niigata City:

Mandaibashi bridge by route 7

Furumachi Mall

Niigata station (West side connector pass)

Keiwagakuen High School (The art room scene)

Takaoka City (Toyama prefecture):

Fushiki High school (Near JR Etchu-Kokubu station)

No English subs on DVD…

When Blue had its too-short art house theatrical run, it was subtitled in English. Naturally I missed it, and recently picked up the DVD having heard raves. The DVD has no subtitles at all, which is somewhat baffling given that the translation work had already been done. Does anyone know of a source for a script, or an otherwise easily translatable source for the dialog? Several small theaters I’ve attended actually distributed typed scripts in English for films with spotty subtitles. If anyone had the dialog for Blue, I’d sure like to read it.

The movie’s deliberate pace, calm tone and long uninterrupted takes (5-10 minutes in some cases) really set it apart from more conventional Japanese (and American) fare. Mikako Ichikawa, who may be known to some from her supporting roles in Cutie Honey and Jam Films 2’s “Armchair Theory”, is impressive. Her character’s restraint and painful shyness comes across almost completely through her eyes. She seems almost impenetrable, yet fragile.

This story would have genuine appeal to the U.S. art cinema crowd. Anyone who enjoyed Ghost World could do a lot worse: Blue captures the outsider feel of Clowes’ characters without the forced quirkiness.

Long description for the movie

The way how this movie was made is breathtaking. From the decors to the actors play, this movie fares far better than anyone would expect from such a story. There aren’t many scenes where u’ll See a crowd, mostly because the setting for the movie isn’t some big city, but rather some small province town. The movie is poetry in motion, calm, almost too peaceful to bare. On a side u have Kirishima who is pretty much an introvert girl. But Kirishima, despite being an introvert(she doesn’t talk much in the movie), it’s a person that follows her feelings, instincts and dreams. On the other side u have Endo who is an outcast because she broke the society’s rules: she felt in love with an older, married man, she got pregnant and had an abortion. Endo says about herself that she goes with the flow, and that actually it is the reality of her character. Even in the movie finale, you will see in the message sent by Endo to Kirishima(a recorded videotape), the kind of person that she is. Between Kirishima and Endo you have Nakano(Endo’s best friend)and Kirishima’s lunch group(some other three girls). It is really interesting how the relationships are evolving. First Kirishima brings Endo to her group, then Kirishima sleeps with the love interest of someone in her lunch group. Maybe the evolution of those relationships is characterized by a phrase said by one of Kirishima’s friend: “When we’ve split the money for the cake in four, then was good; when Endo came, still was good, but then, you(Kirishima) and Endo left.Three is not a good number”. Then Endo presents Nakano to Kirishima, and the three of them are quickly become real good friends. Kirishima’s love for Endo develops in steps, nothing sudden or unexpected. But there is so much sensuality in the relationship between the two girls that u can almost feel it. In the summer vacation, Endo gets a phone call from the guy who left her pregnant and she leaves Kirishima. When Endo comes back, she finds a different Kirishima. Nakano told Kirishima where Endo left for summer and Endo at her return try to hide the truth. Somewhere in the summer Kirishima meets again the guy that provoked the rupture between her and the lunch group. They talk and the guy says something very important: Kirishima is the one who gives the most in her relationship with Endo. But Kirishima also believes in second chances, and at Endo’s return she gave her the chance to come clean. The braking between them is almost brutal after the lies told by Endo, and yet after a certain period the two of them makes up. But u can feel that something very important was lost. When Kirishima propose that the both of them should go to Tokyo and live together, Endo dodge her proposal. The finale of the movie finds us with a single Kirishima, and a videotape sent by Endo, a videotape that says through images “I just go with the flow”

A movie for soul and mind, a movie for someone who wants a “most likely to happen” story. And a movie that leaves with so many mixed feelings: melancholy, sadness, and yet a certain optimism and a feeling that all will be okay after a while.