Romance Doll

Yes, this J-Drama movie starts out as a comedy in true fashion of the Japanese humor that you cannot deny. Couldn't stop laughing as the ML takes this job to help design the perfect sex doll - not for any other reason except he needs money. Getting the breasts to feel just right were the challenge so he comes up with a new idea to accomplish that. Later, the movie turns to sadness and includes spousal cheating, incurable illness with the death of his wife and how the couple fulfills their marriage in the last days of her life and how the sex doll turns out to replace her in the end. Of course the movie is sexy and also a bit odd at the same time .

Rather than repeat what has been said in other reviews, I want to point out the Toko Miura (Drive My Car) has a small, but important role. Tetsuo is lonely, not looking for an affair when he casually meets Hiroko (Toko Miura,) who drinks too much and becomes too frustrated with arcade games. Her emotional life seems a mess, and Tetsuo empathizes. After a few drinks and some Karaoke, he spends the night with Hirako. When they say goodbye, it is obvious and touching how lonely Hirako is. Sonoko later says loneliness is what drove her to infidelity -only once (one suspects alcohol also played a role.) But even when Tetsuo admits that he has cheated -only once - he does not confess to his own loneliness. Hirako, then, is like a kindred spirit and emblem to their loneliness, but has no one to return to and sort it out. In the hands of a lesser actor, Hirako may have been forgettable. But Toko Miura brings a well-crafted naturalness and humanity to her role, just as she did in Drive My Car. I wish we could have finally heard HER story, in this film too. In a few short scenes, she makes you care about her. Loneliness and reticence can erode love and destroy lives. That is something Hirako, Tetsuo, and Sonoko have in common.

Every success have a reason behind, this movie showing how a perfect doll is produced. I seldom watch Japanese movie but think this one quite catch my eye, little slow but the storyline is interesting and very humanized.

Audiences will watch anything nowadays... The guy is married to a super slender chick and instead of doing her sleeps with a less thin woman!?!? I understand the need for variety, but come on! Your wife is skinny and you are not in her!!? Makes no sense.

This movie definitely takes its time. I don't mind that at all. And if you like slow movies, this is definitely worth a watch. It starts out as a comedy but just when I started to think that it would be a bit too crude or too simplistic to be funny for the whole movie, the movie turns more serious. The chemistry between the characters, the main characters but also the side characters is great. The story is basically about a relationship, between Ketsuo and Sokono, and they both turn out to not being open with each other. About what and why Ketsuo is not will be obvious from the beginning, but what is she not telling him? I don't really get why so many people did not really care for this movie and gave it such low ratings. I enjoyed it and watched it in one go. I mean, is it a movie that will rock your world? No. If that is the only reason to like a movie, don't watch this. But if you like slow movies like I do, and if you like movies that are a mix of funny and serious, then seriously give this a go.