The Furthest End Awaits

さいはてにて かけがえのない場所 | 세상의 끝에서 커피 한 잔

Japan/South Korea, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.

Director: Jiang Xiuqiong 姜秀琼.

Rating: 7/10.

Unshowy but affecting light drama about memory, roots and female companionship.

STORY

Tokyo, the present day. Yoshida Misaki (Nagasaku Hiromi), 34, is told that her fisherman father (Murakami Jun), who went missing when his boat, the Yutaka-maru, disappeared offshore, can now be legally declared dead as eight years have passed since the event. Yoshida Misaki, who last saw her father 30 years ago when her parents divorced, but still remains devoted to his memory, agrees to take over any of his debts so the process can go ahead. Her father’s only asset, which she inherits, is a boathouse in a small community on the tip of the Nota peninsula, on the northern coast of central Japan, where he lived and worked. In the faint hope that he may still reappear one day, Yoshida Misaki decides to move there, back to the place of her birth. She renovates the boathouse into a coffee shop called Yodaka Coffee, and transfers her specialist mail-order coffee business there as well. She gets to know two children, Arisa (Sakurada Hiyori) and her younger brother Shota (Hotamori Kaisei), who live opposite; their single mother, Yamasaki Eriko (Sasaki Nozomi), is often away, earning money in a hostess club in Kanazawa city. Yoshida Misaki also gets to know the kids’ elementary school teacher, Shiroyama Megumi (Usuda Asami). When Yamasaki Eriko finds out her children have been spending time at Yoshida Misaki’s coffee shop, she forbids them to go there anymore; but while Yamasaki Eriko is away, Yoshida Misaki lets them help her in return for pocket money for their school lunches. The children also visit their great-grandmother, Yuriko (Asada Miyoko), who is in hospital in town. Yamasaki Eriko has a sleazy lover (Nagase Masatoshi) who visits her whenever she’s home; one night he tries to rape and rob Yoshida Misaki but is caught in time. The experience brings Yoshida Misaki and Yamasaki Eriko closer together and the latter starts working for Yoshida Misaki. And then Yoshida Misaki receives news about the Yutaka-maru’s disappearance.

REVIEW

Taiwan film-maker Jiang Xiuqiong 姜秀琼, who’s done everything from acting (the middle sister in A Brighter Summer Day 牯岭街少年杀人事件, 1991) to directing shorts and co-directing a documentary on d.p. Li Pingbin 李屏宾 [Mark Lee] (Let the Wind Carry Me 乘着光影旅行  李屏宾的摄影人生 , 2010), adds another string to her varied bow with The Furthest End Awaits さいはてにて  かけがえのない場所, her second feature after the family/gay TV movie Artemisia 艾草 (2008). Working from a script by Kakinoki Nako 柿木奈子, and with Japanese key crew, Jiang comes up with a film that looks and feels 100% Nipponese while carrying over some of the themes that have marked her work in Taiwan. Set and shot on the beautiful coastline around Suzu, on the tip of the Noto peninsula, central Japan, it’s a gently affecting light drama about memory, roots and companionship, marbled with the lightest of messages about the strengths of a non-nuclear female family.

The protagonist is Misaki, a single Tokyo woman in her mid-30s who’s still devoted to the memory of her fisherman father whom she hardly knew and who disappeared eight years ago on a boat with other fishermen. With her father now officially declared dead, she inherits his boathouse and moves her mail-order coffee-blending business there, vaguely hoping he may still return one day to the scenic area in which she was born. There she gets to know two young kids who live opposite, and eventually their single mother, who’s away a lot of the time making a living in a hostess club. A nasty deed by the mother’s sleazy lover brings the two women closer together.

Kakinoki’s screenplay – which has the feel of a novel adaptation but is, in fact, original – spends little time trying to justify the lead’s decision to move back to the remote place of her birth, which seems entirely emotional and at odds with her otherwise business-like approach to life. That weakness apart, the script is well-crafted, moving its characters together in slow increments, first through the children who take a liking to Misaki and then through an event that bonds the adults. It’s all utterly Japanese – from Misaki’s obsessive interest in coffee-blending, and the mystical way in which the foreign brew brings people together, to her devotion to an idea that seems utterly irrational.

Though Misaki is the main character, she remains – like all the characters – something of an enigma as far as her background is concerned. Quiet and nice, she has nothing in her life except her work, which makes the low-key performance by 43-year-old actress-singer Nagasaku Hiromi 永作博美 (the younger sister in Su-ki-da 好きだ, 2005, the child abductress in Rebirth 八日目の蝉, 2011) all the more remarkable, given the movie’s shortage of overt drama.

Instead, the film’s colour comes from the rest of the cast, especially Sakurada Hiyori 樱田日和, 11, as the elder kid and Hotamori Kaisei 保田盛凯清 as her lively younger brother, both of whom interact with Nagasaku in a likeable manner. It’s not until an hour in that the key friendship between Misaki and the kids’ mother really develops, and then in a very undemonstrative way as the two women and two kids move towards forming an unconventional family. Veteran Asada Miyoko 浅田美代子, 58, is sympathetic in a small but key role as the kids’ hospitalised great-grandmother.

With no music until the end titles, the film is moved along by the sounds of the sea and nature, plus the unforced beauty of the images by UK-based, fashion photographer-turned-d.p. Shinma Dankuro 真间段九朗, in his first feature. At the end of the day, Furthest End doesn’t say a great deal, or travel very far, but remains curiously watchable thanks to its surface detail and likeable characters.

[In Jiang’s native Taiwan the film was released under the Chinese title 宁静咖啡馆之歌 (literally, “Song of a Tranquil Coffee Shop”). In Hong Kong it was retitled 海边咖啡屋 (“Coffee Shop by the Sea”.]

CREDITS

Presented by The Furthest End Awaits Film Partners (Toei [JP], Hokkoku Shimbun [JP], Doki Entertainment [SK]) (JP/SK).

Script: Kakinoki Nako. Photography: Shinma Dankuro. Editing: Watanabe Naoki. Music: Kamimura Shuhei. Art direction: Kanekatsu Koichi. Sound: Yamada Koji.

Cast: Nagasaku Hiromi (Yoshida Misaki), Sasaki Nozomi (Yamasaki Eriko), Sakurada Hiyori (Arisa, Eriko’s daughter), Hotamori Kaisei (Shota, Eriko’s son), Usuda Asami (Shiroyama Megumi), Asada Miyoko (Yuriko, Yamasaki Eriko’s great-grandmother), Ogata Issey (lawyer), Murakami Jun (Yoshida Misaki’s father), Nagase Masatoshi (Yamasaki Eriko’s lover).

Premiere: Vancouver Film Festival (Dragons & Tigers), 27 Sep 2014.

Release: Japan, 28 Feb 2015; South Korea, 5 Nov 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 13 Oct 2014.)