Look at the poster.
It looks like a 2018 America movie starring Bella Thorne and Patrick Schwarzenegger, right?
Instead, it's a 2006 Japanese film starring Yui and Takashi Tsukamoto.
It's Japanese title is Taiyô no uta.
I'm glad that there is diversity in movies, but this seems like an extreme bait-and-switch. But it's still about a girl with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP),
The movie starts with a slow pan over Kamakura and I mean 30 seconds slow. I'm confused as to the lack of an opening pop song.
The main character with XP (Kaoru) stares out her window.
XP is more common in Japan than other places, but Yui seems just as realistically affected as Bella Thorne.
She watches a man ride a bike with a kayak on the side. He sits on a bench, but Kauro can't see his face because the bus sign blocks it.
This will be important later.
His friends show up and he rides away.
Kaoru goes to sleep. The next day, there are a lot of establishing shots of Kamakura juxtaposed with the sun. When the sun goes down, Kaoru wakes up. She goes downstairs and meets her parents.
Kaoru puts some cream on her face, which is good enough for the fictionalized XP. Her father disaparages her music and her mother warns her that sunris is at 4:40.
Yui is a pop star in Japan, so this is her marketing scheme. A movie about XP.
Kaora goes to the train station, lights a candle, and some policemen have a conversation about her, saying she has XP and can only go out at night.
In Everything, Everything (2017), there was a clumsy opening narration explaining SID. But that was preferable to ... this.
The movie stops for about 3:03 to showcase one of Yui's songs.
For whose sake am I living?
The cloudy days pass by
How much do you feel this pain and weakness?
Drowning myself in worthless yesterdays...
but eventually she sings two lines in English.
Tomorrow Never Knows
It's happy line.
There's a lot of sun and star imagery.
The title appears almost 14 minutes into this movie.
Oh, the movie is also called Song of the Sun, but that would ruin my entire gimmick with this entry,
Kaoru lays on the bench by her house. She sees the bus sign and moves it over.
This confused me so much that I actually looked up to see if Japan had some unfamiliar bus stop rules. But she just wants to move the sign so that she can see the boy the next time he rides by. It took me too long to figure that out.
The next day, the boy, Koji, sits outside the bench and Kaoru watches him. If I had waited thirty seconds, I wouldn't have had to waste time figuring out the bus sign thing.
Now she just has to cut the wires.
Kaoru's cousin, Misiki, comes over to visit. She asks her aunt and uncle about a protective suit. Again, really clumsy exposition. I would prefer a voice-over narration. They go to get ice-cream.
It took almost twenty minutes for the romance aimed at teenage girls to include shirtless guys and surfing.
Koji's friends notice the sun is high, check their watches, and yell at him to leave because it is almost ten.
Get it? He also has to come in because the sun is too high. I would have thought that people just check the time instead of mentioning that the sun is high, but I'm not in this movie.
Kaoru watches sourly as a police officer moves the sign back. Then she plays the Tommorrow Never Knows song to Miziki at the train station.
In case it isn't obvious, this entire movie is an excuse to sell Yuri's latest album.
How come when I do an non-exploitation movie, it ends up being more exploitative than the actual exploitation movies?
Kaoru spots Koji and decides to run and talk to him.
This movie is two hours, but there are a lot of slow shots to pad it out.
Kaoru catches up to Koji at a train crossing and accidentally tackles him to the ground. On the rails.
She does the awkward crush talk, where one of the first things she tells him is that she lives with her parents and later she tells him she doesn't have a boyfriend.
This conversation goes off the rails.
She is just finished telling him she likes bananas when Miziki rescues her. Miziki informs her that this is a silly thing to say, unaware of the subconcious phallic imagery.
At the window, Kaoru and Miziki gossip about Koji. Miziki figures that she must go to the same school as him, so Kaoru sends her to spy on him.
Yeah, that is a plot point. Sure hope this high-school has no security cameras.
Kaoru's mother goes to the doctor and says that Kaoru has already passed the age when
Then she asks about the possibility of a cure.
Some voice-over exposition about XP and a girl with the fictionalized XP comes through.
I was just praising this movie's lack of blatant voice-over exposition! I think that Midnight Sun (2013) is struggling to fill the two hour run time.
Kaoru watches the extensive video footage that Miziki took of Koji and this is the creepiest part of the movie. The camera isn't exactly discreet and she got tons and tons of footage, including some of his friends.
Afterwards, Miziki concludes that Koji is a huge idiot.
Kaoru spends time watching the voyeuristic videos of Koji and damn, I thought American romance movies portrayed unhealthy relationships.
Yui plugs another song (Good-bye Days, in English) as she sits at the bus stop.
I searched for the lyrics to this song, but they appear to be different in the movie.
The only one I can make out is
I'll never see your eyes
Yes, they put a song called Good-Bye Days in a movie about XP.
I wonder whether Yui wrote the song first and then searched for a disease that fit it, or she was tasked to write a song for a movie about XP.
When Kaoru looks up, Koji is there. The conversation basically goes like this:
Koji: You're the girl who chased me onto the train tracks, right?
Kaoru: Yes, sorry.
Koji: You sing and play guitar well.
Kaoru: You surf.
Kaoru has more chemistry with the sun than with Koji
She reveals that she lives in the house right above them and Koji wonders why they never met.
Kaoru's watch beeps and she leaves before the sun comes up. But Koji stops her and says he is looking forward to her next street performance.
Summer vacation begins. Koji's mother is upset because he is spending so much time surfing that his grades are bad. Koji decides to not surf, but go to an concert with Kaoru instead.
The singer is terrible because he doesn't have the luxury of a post-production Yui song dubbed in.
Kaoru rejects Koji's suggestion to go up and perform. They go off on a motorcycle together to the city.
Kaoru performs a song called "I Want to Fly Well", which is clearly a dark reference to the legend of Icarus.
Some random people join her and know the exact chords and rhythm to play and everyone gathers to watch her.
Teenage girls watching this: This could be you as long as you are Yuri.
Cut to Kaoru playing in a new location. Where is this? Why did all these people come? No idea, but you can buy Yuri's hot new single Good-bye Days today!
Kaoru rides to the coast on the back of Koji's motorcycle and the instrumental version of Goodbue Days is quite nice.
Koji tells Kaoru that her music is quite nice and she deserves to be recorded and be a star and Yuri is like "Why do you think I made this movie?"
At least Koji didn't say something like "You deserve a spotlight."
What he does say is "do you love me?"
Kaoru nods and the movie isn't even half over yet.
The movie isn't even half over.
Koji casually mentions that the coast has a nice sunrise, which will happen in about ten minutes.
I feel like people don't mention the sunrise in real life this often.
Kaoru wastes about a full minute talking to Koji and then attempts to outrun the sun. Koji rescues her with his motorcycle. Teenager girl fantasy, remember.
Then...the most hilarious scene...
The film goes slow motion as Kaoru attempts to get into her house as the sun rises. And the music is comically dramatic.
Kaoru gets inside safely.
OR DOES SHE?
Miziki and Kaoru's parents look for her and Miziki reveals to Koji that Kaoru can't be out in the sun. Karou is rushed to the hospital.
The doctor says that the amount of sunlight wasn't enough to cause damage and sends her home.
On the way back, Kaoru's parents figure out she likes a boy and for some reason, they are more concerned about who the boy is than that he almost killed their daughter.
Koji sulks around on his bike and I can't believe there is still half the movie to go.
Koji comes to her house and confronts her. Koji laments that she "sang so well"
Yeah, this entire movie is an ego project for Yuri, isn't it?
Kaoru does her whole "I want to live a normal life" spiel and how is this movie only half over?
Cut to Koji looking sad on the beach.
He sells his surfboard for 2000 yen. Then he takes a job cleaning boats for 6000 yen.
Kaoru's father interrogates Miziki about Koji. by roleplaying high-school student and it is crepy. He enlists her help to find out more information about Koji.
Kaoru lays around and plugs Goodbye Days. She goes to dinner, but sees Miziki and Koji there. Some pretty funny awkward moments.
By "pretty funny", I mean it's mildly amusing for this movie, which has almost no intentionally funny parts.
Koji has a surprise:
It's a music school. Koji still has no idea that Kaoru might die by the end of the movie, so he asks her if she wants to go too. She nods and that's actually an effective scene.
However...
I hate when people say "This movie should have..." instead of talking about what the movie did, but I'm going to do that here.
This movie should have made it so that Koji only made enough money to send one of them to music school. It doesn't feel like a sacrifice if he also gets to go.
Koji and Kaoru go out walking. Kaoru is touched that Koji thinks she could be able to do something but struggles to break the "Thanks, but I'm probably going to die sooon" conversation.
In Japan, does the phrase "the wrong side of the track" mean something else? Because this scene....
Koji tells Kaoru all the symptoms that he's notice, such as not going out during the day, and the "she's really a vampire twist would really make sense here.
And then the train comes and they die.
The movie has "gone off the rails", so it's time to return to the main focus: selling Yuri's song.
She hums "Good-bye Days" as Koji repurchases his surfboard. She tries playing it on the guitar while Miziki reads in her bed, but she keeps messing up the chords.
Maybe she should go to music school or something.
She looks at her hand, and goes to get something to eat. She stares at herself in the mirror.
I feel awful saying this, because it plays into the entire "You don't look sick" mindset, but she doesn't look like she has XP.
Kaoru is unable to play guitar due to her hand. So she goes to the hospital. The doctor looks at her brain scans and says that her brain has begun contracting. Then he goes into an explanation of XP so that the movie will feel that it isn't just there to sell Yuri's music.
Kaoru's father and the doctor talk in the waiting room. Kaori's laments that he never let her leave the house as a child and he did Everything, Everything (2017) for her but this still happened. He wishes that it was a sudden shock instead.
20 more minutes, including credits.
Koji comes to Kaoru's house and asks how she is doing, but mostly to confirm that he didn't do anything strange. Kaoru assures him no, but tells him that the first time she say him was outside the window.
I hope that she tells him she enlisted her cousin to stalk him.
Flashback to Koji messing around with a surfer's board and then a shirtless guy comes out and this movie was made for teenage girls, wasn't it?
Kaoru says that watching him throughout the years made her feel happy and somehow this doesn't freak Koji out. I'm glad she doesn't tell him about Miziki stalking him with a camera.
Koji leaves. Kaoru said "See you:, and then Koji looks back, so they are definitely not going to see each other again.
Just kidding, Kaoru yells after him that, ever though she can't play guitar with her hand, she can still sing. Gotta plug those Yuri songs.
Koji walks away and cries.
Then Koji, Kaoru, and her parents go on a surprise visit to a recording studio.
This movie was at a lose-lose situation with me.
If Kaoru had died after the last conversation, I would have complained because that was a cliche.
Since Kaoru didn't die after the last conversation, I'm complaining that they wasted the emotional weight of that scene.
Kaoru gets to record her song before she dies. This isn't something you should just spring on something.
Kaoru asks to record it without her parents or Koji there because "it would be better for them to wait for the CD to come out."
...she's recording her funeral music, isn't she?
Koaur sings, what else, "Good-bye days"
We don't get to hear it, but there is no way Yuri wouldn't end the movie on "Good-bye Days",
Outside, Kojii tells Kaoru's parents that Kaoru is going to be a star once her CD comes out, and that she'll have a great future, and how has he not done research?
Kaoru finishes recording. It would be hilarious if she pulled a The Producers and her funeral song is terrible.
Kaoru sits outside on the beach in her Chekov's outfit and waches Koji surf. If she dies on the beach, well, What Ever Happened To Kaoru?
Speaking of which, her father casually tell her that she can take off her suit and run to Koji if she wants. Kaoru reminds him that she'll die. I don't knw if he meant that as a joke.
Now, the translation from Japanese has been pretty bad so far, and I'm really hoping that Kaoru's next line sounds better in Japanese
"I decided to move on until I die, because I move on with all my might."
Kaoru stands up and walks toward the water and Koji.
I can't properly describe how out-of-place and bad her parent's dialogue is. But in summary
"She's lived in darkness, but she's always been stubborn about what she wanted."
Right as she reaches Koji, she freezes and says her final line.
"What a strange face."
THEY ACTUALLY USED SUNFLOWERS AT HER FUNERAL.
THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING.
Also, her complexion is great for someone who died of XP.
The writing throughout this movie has been fairly poor, but it just gives up here.
The CD comes out. I guess it wasn't her funeral music. Koji listens to, what else, Goodbye days,
So does Miziki.
So do her parents.
It plays over the radio.
Teenage girls watching this movie, if you want to make it, you should die young. But buy Yuri's latest album first.
The movie ends with Kaori recording the song and Koji going to surf.
Then a shot of the city out a window. Like the beginning.
The first credit tells us why the movie was made.
Midnight Sun (2006) might be a good movie, or it might be bad. It's irrelevant, because I'm confused. Why did they release this in America in 2018 while using American actors in the advertisments. Is Yui trying to get her music recognized in America? Why wait so long?
I can't rate this movie because if it increases sales of Yui's music, it will have succeeded.
Koji: You're the girl who chased me onto the train tracks, right?
Kaoru: Yes, sorry.
Koji: You sing and play guitar well.
Kaoru: You surf.
Kaoru has more chemistry with the sun than with Koji
She reveals that she lives in the house right above them and Koji wonders why they never met.
Kaoru's watch beeps and she leaves before the sun comes up. But Koji stops her and says he is looking forward to her next street performance.
Summer vacation begins. Koji's mother is upset because he is spending so much time surfing that his grades are bad. Koji decides to not surf, but go to an concert with Kaoru instead.
The singer is terrible because he doesn't have the luxury of a post-production Yui song dubbed in.
Kaoru rejects Koji's suggestion to go up and perform. They go off on a motorcycle together to the city.
Kaoru performs a song called "I Want to Fly Well", which is clearly a dark reference to the legend of Icarus.
Some random people join her and know the exact chords and rhythm to play and everyone gathers to watch her.
Teenage girls watching this: This could be you as long as you are Yuri.
Cut to Kaoru playing in a new location. Where is this? Why did all these people come? No idea, but you can buy Yuri's hot new single Good-bye Days today!
Kaoru rides to the coast on the back of Koji's motorcycle and the instrumental version of Goodbue Days is quite nice.
Koji tells Kaoru that her music is quite nice and she deserves to be recorded and be a star and Yuri is like "Why do you think I made this movie?"
At least Koji didn't say something like "You deserve a spotlight."
What he does say is "do you love me?"
Kaoru nods and the movie isn't even half over yet.
The movie isn't even half over.
Koji casually mentions that the coast has a nice sunrise, which will happen in about ten minutes.
I feel like people don't mention the sunrise in real life this often.
Kaoru wastes about a full minute talking to Koji and then attempts to outrun the sun. Koji rescues her with his motorcycle. Teenager girl fantasy, remember.
Then...the most hilarious scene...
The film goes slow motion as Kaoru attempts to get into her house as the sun rises. And the music is comically dramatic.
Kaoru gets inside safely.
OR DOES SHE?
Miziki and Kaoru's parents look for her and Miziki reveals to Koji that Kaoru can't be out in the sun. Karou is rushed to the hospital.
The doctor says that the amount of sunlight wasn't enough to cause damage and sends her home.
On the way back, Kaoru's parents figure out she likes a boy and for some reason, they are more concerned about who the boy is than that he almost killed their daughter.
Koji sulks around on his bike and I can't believe there is still half the movie to go.
Koji comes to her house and confronts her. Koji laments that she "sang so well"
Yeah, this entire movie is an ego project for Yuri, isn't it?
Kaoru does her whole "I want to live a normal life" spiel and how is this movie only half over?
Cut to Koji looking sad on the beach.
He sells his surfboard for 2000 yen. Then he takes a job cleaning boats for 6000 yen.
Kaoru's father interrogates Miziki about Koji. by roleplaying high-school student and it is crepy. He enlists her help to find out more information about Koji.
Kaoru lays around and plugs Goodbye Days. She goes to dinner, but sees Miziki and Koji there. Some pretty funny awkward moments.
By "pretty funny", I mean it's mildly amusing for this movie, which has almost no intentionally funny parts.
Koji has a surprise:
It's a music school. Koji still has no idea that Kaoru might die by the end of the movie, so he asks her if she wants to go too. She nods and that's actually an effective scene.
However...
I hate when people say "This movie should have..." instead of talking about what the movie did, but I'm going to do that here.
This movie should have made it so that Koji only made enough money to send one of them to music school. It doesn't feel like a sacrifice if he also gets to go.
Koji and Kaoru go out walking. Kaoru is touched that Koji thinks she could be able to do something but struggles to break the "Thanks, but I'm probably going to die sooon" conversation.
In Japan, does the phrase "the wrong side of the track" mean something else? Because this scene....
Koji tells Kaoru all the symptoms that he's notice, such as not going out during the day, and the "she's really a vampire twist would really make sense here.
And then the train comes and they die.
The movie has "gone off the rails", so it's time to return to the main focus: selling Yuri's song.
She hums "Good-bye Days" as Koji repurchases his surfboard. She tries playing it on the guitar while Miziki reads in her bed, but she keeps messing up the chords.
Maybe she should go to music school or something.
She looks at her hand, and goes to get something to eat. She stares at herself in the mirror.
I feel awful saying this, because it plays into the entire "You don't look sick" mindset, but she doesn't look like she has XP.
Kaoru is unable to play guitar due to her hand. So she goes to the hospital. The doctor looks at her brain scans and says that her brain has begun contracting. Then he goes into an explanation of XP so that the movie will feel that it isn't just there to sell Yuri's music.
Kaoru's father and the doctor talk in the waiting room. Kaori's laments that he never let her leave the house as a child and he did Everything, Everything (2017) for her but this still happened. He wishes that it was a sudden shock instead.
20 more minutes, including credits.
Koji comes to Kaoru's house and asks how she is doing, but mostly to confirm that he didn't do anything strange. Kaoru assures him no, but tells him that the first time she say him was outside the window.
I hope that she tells him she enlisted her cousin to stalk him.
Flashback to Koji messing around with a surfer's board and then a shirtless guy comes out and this movie was made for teenage girls, wasn't it?
Kaoru says that watching him throughout the years made her feel happy and somehow this doesn't freak Koji out. I'm glad she doesn't tell him about Miziki stalking him with a camera.
Koji leaves. Kaoru said "See you:, and then Koji looks back, so they are definitely not going to see each other again.
Just kidding, Kaoru yells after him that, ever though she can't play guitar with her hand, she can still sing. Gotta plug those Yuri songs.
Koji walks away and cries.
Then Koji, Kaoru, and her parents go on a surprise visit to a recording studio.
This movie was at a lose-lose situation with me.
If Kaoru had died after the last conversation, I would have complained because that was a cliche.
Since Kaoru didn't die after the last conversation, I'm complaining that they wasted the emotional weight of that scene.
Kaoru gets to record her song before she dies. This isn't something you should just spring on something.
Kaoru asks to record it without her parents or Koji there because "it would be better for them to wait for the CD to come out."
...she's recording her funeral music, isn't she?
Koaur sings, what else, "Good-bye days"
We don't get to hear it, but there is no way Yuri wouldn't end the movie on "Good-bye Days",
Outside, Kojii tells Kaoru's parents that Kaoru is going to be a star once her CD comes out, and that she'll have a great future, and how has he not done research?
Kaoru finishes recording. It would be hilarious if she pulled a The Producers and her funeral song is terrible.
Kaoru sits outside on the beach in her Chekov's outfit and waches Koji surf. If she dies on the beach, well, What Ever Happened To Kaoru?
Speaking of which, her father casually tell her that she can take off her suit and run to Koji if she wants. Kaoru reminds him that she'll die. I don't knw if he meant that as a joke.
Now, the translation from Japanese has been pretty bad so far, and I'm really hoping that Kaoru's next line sounds better in Japanese
"I decided to move on until I die, because I move on with all my might."
Kaoru stands up and walks toward the water and Koji.
I can't properly describe how out-of-place and bad her parent's dialogue is. But in summary
"She's lived in darkness, but she's always been stubborn about what she wanted."
Right as she reaches Koji, she freezes and says her final line.
"What a strange face."
THEY ACTUALLY USED SUNFLOWERS AT HER FUNERAL.
THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING.
Also, her complexion is great for someone who died of XP.
The writing throughout this movie has been fairly poor, but it just gives up here.
The CD comes out. I guess it wasn't her funeral music. Koji listens to, what else, Goodbye days,
So does Miziki.
So do her parents.
It plays over the radio.
Teenage girls watching this movie, if you want to make it, you should die young. But buy Yuri's latest album first.
The movie ends with Kaori recording the song and Koji going to surf.
Then a shot of the city out a window. Like the beginning.
The first credit tells us why the movie was made.
I can't rate this movie because if it increases sales of Yui's music, it will have succeeded.
