Memories of Tomorrow (2006) User Reviews

Heartwarming and sincere.

[boku-2 · 8/10 · 24 January 2007]

This was a brilliant movie. I watched it on the plane from Japan to Holland and even on the plane I found myself crying towards the end.

Watanabe acts superbly and so does Higuchi.

After watching the film, I came away reminded of how important it is to show your loved ones you care.

A lot of movies about sickness can present very 2-dimensional characters but the characters in this movie had a lot of depth and it was easy to relate to them and ask "what would I do in that situation?".

Eight out of ten.

Good movie featuring Ken Watanabe

[ebiros2 · 7/10 · 18 December 2012]

This is the first movie to feature Ken Watanabe in the lead role. This may come as a surprise to many of us who've seen Ken in movies like "The Last Samurai", and other Japanese movies. He was the star in these movies, but surprise to learn that he was never the lead actor until this movie.

In fact, Ken was the one who've suggested to make the novel of the same title by Hiroshi Ogiwara into a movie. He saw similarity between himself who had a bout with leukemia with the main character of the novel Masayuki Saeki. The movie that was the first film to feature him as its star won the Japanese Academy Award for 2006.

This is a good movie that portrays the life of 49 year old middle aged executive who contracts Alzheimer's disease at the peak of his career. The confusion, and desperation of the man who's career is about to be taken away from him, and the courage him and his wife shows to combat the life that's before them is more suspenseful than your average action movie. The kind of courage and dignity the main character Saeki has is probably what Ken Watanabe has as a person as well.

Ken Watanabe is brilliant in this movie, and its worth every minute of your time to see him in action.

You might be next

[shi612 · 8/10 · 19 January 2007]

You might be the next.

I am about to be 60 years old, and I notice myself getting forgetful day after day.

Particularly I felt appalled when Saeki (lead character acted by Watanabe Ken) is appalled by his rapid change with the progress of the symptoms, that started from just feeling hard to recall proper names to being unable to recognize his people in the office.

The performances of Watanabe Ken and Higuchi Kanako (as Saeki's wife Emiko) is very convincing. The husband and wife had to confront this big trial when they were going to live alone after raising up their daughter.

This movie asks you this question: If you had Alzheimer's disease and you would no longer be yourself what will you live by?

********* Spoiler from here ********

This is an excellent movie, but the last episode when Saeki visits the nursing home and old clay kiln is questionable.

He visits the new place only guided by a pamphlet. Furthermore, he looks so mature that the nursing home principal is surprised knowing he is the one to be nursed. Then he receives a call from Emiko in front of a station, and from there he walks into mountain with a bottle of sake he buys at a store nearby the station. Surprisingly, the dead end is the abandoned clay kiln where he and Emiko met 25 years ago. So, are the nursing home and the clay kiln near from the same station? Or, could he travel two places by train on a day, who must be in mid-stage of Alzheimer's disease? When he left home, he had the pamphlet and a clay cup. Therefore from the beginning he meant to visit two places. From when he is guided in the nursing home he does not have the cup in his hand.

I was very confused by the scene Saeki draws a picture on the cup left in the abandoned kiln. He looks lively listening to young Emiko in hallucination: When she was born her father saw chestnuts in the garden, and named the baby Emiko (meaning branches and fruits). Saeki no longer wears a hat and outer cloth. Then Emiko disappears and the old clay teacher appears. This is too good a timing that I was confused if the whole scene was hallucination or real.

While I was still confused, Saeki wakes up the next morning there. He remembers that he and the teacher burned the clay cup last night, which he digs out of charcoal. But when Emiko comes to him he can not recognize her. This gap of cognitives ability is out of reality. Emiko is shocked with it, and cries, but soon she regains herself and walks with him. This last scene is beautiful and the best to end the movie. Maybe, director Tsutsumi knowingly ignored the contradiction,because he wanted to show this last scene. Yes, to portray truth, a level of unreality can be accepted in movies. But Tsutsumi should have been more careful to keep audiences from confusion, so that the audiences can focus to receive the message. At least, how Saeki treats the cup, his hat and outer cloths should be shown at close-up.

Hopefully this will be released in the U.S.

[Phedre07 · 9/10 · 3 November 2006]

I just saw this film at the AFI Film Festival and it hits you on a deep emotional level. I am lucky that I have not had anyone in my family suffering from Alzheimer's, but the film works because it is also contains universal issues about lost love, honor and unspoken feelings within a family. I pretty much cried through the last half of the movie. Ken Watanabe was there after the screening for Q&A. He secured the rights to the book himself, then found the writer and director. His executive producer credit is well earned, and Watanabe just further cements proof of his great acting talents. What could have been a made-for-TV movie in the U.S. is a poignant story for the big screen with a superb level of execution.

Great Movie

[Kakuzato · 9/10 · 12 January 2007]

I saw this on the plane on a recent trip to Japan after having heard about it. My wife (who is Japanese) saw this movie and encouraged me to watch it. Thank heavens she did. It's a touching, sentimental and sometimes funny film. It really does have a warmth and integrity to it which many Western movies tend to lack.

Many people will, of course, know Ken Watanabe from The Last Samurai. He is a talented actor who is ably supported by a fine stellar cast.

I want to purchase this on DVD, anyone know where I can get hold of one? (not dubbed though).

Watch this movie if and when you get the chance, it's worth it.

Last Samurai co-star shows off his talent

[tokiko · 18 June 2006]

Ashita no Kikoku or "remembering for tomorrow" features a man who is diagnosed as having Alzheimer's Disease. Ken Watanabe who has costarred Last Samurai play this man with considerable talent and good physical expression, which might help the non- Japanese audience understand better about the patient. His memory and thoughts go back and forth stirring up the present, while the scenes follow this condition. Pictures are kept above all stylish and the mountainous setting is to appeal mysterious functioning of our memories ("Kioku" in Japanese) .

This man called Mr. Saeki is far from a good family man; he used to be workaholic deserting family for his company business. This is understandable because he works for a major Japanese firm in Tokyo; the film does not take up this issue but strictly focuses on the development of the Disease.

Mrs. Saeki does not bring any social issues to screen, either. She is described as a woman who lives with her memories of loving her husband. By only trying to keep the family together, she might have avoided other hardship ever since they married.

Over all, this movie is a love story within a happy married couple. There are no adventure, no heroic actions, no powerful social message involved in this film, but every scene is carefully chosen and often "speaks" without words. It would show much more up- to-date image on Japanese middle class life than any costly government-endorsed tourism campaign videos and movies.

Fragile memories with a bitter aftertaste

[Jay_Exiomo · 6/10 · 4 July 2009]

If "Memories of Tomorrow" seems like "The Notebook," it's because the cinematic adaptation of a novel by Hiroshi Ogiwara deals with the dreaded Alzheimer's disease as it slowly eats away at Masayuki Saeki's (Ken Watanabe) memories and, therefore, life, a process foreshadowed by an image in its opening credits of buildings being constructed played in reverse such that they appear to be deconstructing. Yet the similarity with Nick Cassavetes' sudsy interpretation of Nicholas Sparks' novel end there, as director Yukihiko Tsutsumi, barring a manipulative second act, presents the film's first hour set in corporate Tokyo with such rhythmic precision and expert framing that the urgency of Masayuki's anger and panic over his gradual descent into senility is masterfully portrayed.

A go-getting manager at a top ad agency, Masayuki, just a few months shy of his 50th birthday, has landed a major deal with a client and along with a doting wife Emiko (Kanako Haguchi) and a soon-to-be-married daughter Rie (Kazue Fukiishi), his life isn't just stable; it's an enviable accomplishment. Yet because he keeps on forgetting his clients' names, the highway exit to his daughter's house, and pretty much every trivial details in his life, he sees a doctor as Emiko suggests, where he learns that he suffers the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease.

As typified by one sequence where Masayuki gets lost in Shibuya, Tsutsumi deftly captures his protagonist's mad dash effort to make sense of both his external and internal environment, be it finding his way to the office, or remembering where his marketing team sat during an Italian lunch, or contemplating whether to jump from a ledge upon his disease's confirmation. Tsustumi radically differs in pacing and tone during the latter half as -- after a cheery montage of Masayuki's newfound domestic life following his early retirement -- he deliberates on the emotional and psychological issues of Masayuki, who now removed from the daily stress of urban life, finds it hard to adjust. Insistently stating the fragility of the human mind and human relationships with recurring images of potteries, china wares and cups, Tsutsumi eventually leaves the film to simmer in a treacly syrup which, while admittedly touching, leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Beautiful film, beautifully made

[RexWriter · 10/10 · 20 June 2007]

I saw this movie at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, MI. It was so well done. The producer was there and to everyones surprise, he was American. He explained to us that Ken Watanabe is like Clint Eastwood over in Japan. He said that Ken was reading the book of this story and really wanted to make it. He also said that the Japanese have only really seen him do Samurai movies and that this was apart from what they usually see him in. This movie won the Japanese equivalent to the best motion picture Oscar. But of course here, no nod in the foreign film category. It is emotionally stirring, visually stunning and extremely well acted. There is no moment in the film where things feel sappily cliché' or manipulative. It is a pure film about its topic. I would definitely recommend this to anyone. Please watch, and enjoy.

Another Alzheimer's Film, More Forgettable

[janos451 · 6/10 · 12 July 2007]

A movie should stand on its own, and "Memories of Tomorrow" does, but it's closely associated - at least in this viewer's mind - with three recent outstanding films:

• Sarah Polley's "Away from Her"

• Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima"

• Alain Corneau's "Fear and Trembling"

As "Away from Her," "Memories of Tomorrow" is about Alzheimer's. In fact, Yukihiko Tsutsumi's film from Hiroshi Ogiwara's novel came out in Japan last year, at the same time Polley's film, with Julie Christie, had its first screening in her native Canada.

No copycat business here, the two are exact contemporaries, both arriving in the U.S. this year. However, Polley's film is not at all what you'd expect from the topic, Tsutsumi's is.

The star of "Iwo Jima" was Ken Watanabe, one of the best-known actors in Japan, but also known in this country from "Memoirs of a Geisha," "Batman Begins," and "The Last Samurai." Watanabe is the end- and be-all of "Memories of Tomorrow," on screen, and acting up a storm, pretty much two hours straight.

"Fear and Trembling" gave a visceral, stomach-punching picture of Japan's super-intense, near-sadistic "salaryman" mentality, the world of 18-hour days, total dependence on the job, and numerous instances of karo-shi, or death from overwork.

The character Watanabe plays in "Memories of Tomorrow," a mid-level executive in a big ad agency, is on top of that cruel food chain, but is getting chewed up himself in the process, neglecting his wife (the luminous Kanako Higuchi, whose career goes back to the 1989 Zatoichi), his pregnant and yet-to-be-married daughter, and pretty much everything else.

Unlike the large strokes and many implied acts and facts in "Away from Her," the onset and development of Alzheimer's in the Japanese film is detailed, explicit, repetitive - and quite unnecessary. One original touch is showing how the illness has a kind of positive effect on the patient, slowing down and humanizing him.

After the utter humiliation of realizing his incompetence (in the single-virtue office environment), the Watanabe character is discovering life's simple pleasures, and long-neglected relationships. These bright spots in the oncoming darkness (and Higuchi's presence) lift the film from what otherwise would be an unrelievedly grim experience.

Very Scary Film - You Wouldn't Want This to Happen to You!

[3xHCCH · 8/10 · 9 July 2009]

Mr. Masayuki Saeki is a 49 year old hotshot boss in an advertising firm who just landed a big account. However, at the same time, he was already getting disturbingly forgetful about where he puts his things, when his appointments were, where a familiar place was. His repeated purchases of the same shaving cream spurred his worried wife Emiko to bring him to a Neurologist. His medical interview and MRI leads to a most depressing diagnosis. Not yet 50 years old, but he already has early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.

This movie hits very close to home for me, as Mr. Saeki is just a few years older than me, and I must admit to being forgetful once in a while. I never knew that Alzheimer's can hit people so early as the film explained. It is a very sobering realization of an impending lifelong prison, which you wish would never happen to you.

The actors who played Mr. and Mrs. Saeki (the intense Ken Watanabe and the luminous Higuchi Kanako)really captured perfectly the depth of desperation and exasperation when one is trapped in such a dire situation in the prime of one's life. Those riveting scenes in the stairwell, then at the wedding, and at the dinner table are simply unforgettable.

On a slightly negative note, I felt the film went on a little too long, and the scenes depicting the progress of his Alzheimer's became a bit repetitive and excessive already. However, that is just a minor quibble. The film, as it was executed, is compelling and touching. It can definitely hold your attention to the inevitably tear-jerking progression and conclusion, told as only the Japanese can.

good acting, weak story

[kaimono2001 · 5/10 · 19 June 2007]

I have mixed feelings about this film. First, I'll start by saying that Ken Wantanabe is a very talented actor and he is equally talented in this film. However, like many Japanese feature films recently, I feel this film was a bit too contrived.

First I thought it was too long and there were a few unnecessary scenes, but I may have watched the unedited version on DVD. It does hit you at some points emotionally,however, I can't find myself really empathizing with either Saeki or Emiko. Also, I feel that it's not completely realistic of what Alzheimer's is like or any damage to the brain (having brief experience myself), but shows it in a more fantastical way. The film only briefly touches upon things like violence and other complete losses of control.The director did do a good job with the only real violent scene, when Emiko is hit in the head with a dish, by actually depicting it with out showing any real physical violence. However, there were many scenes I watched in disbelief like that the main character could still read a newspaper or post it notes, especially in kanji, with advance stages of Alzheimer's, or he could arrive at the care facility alone by train with no problem, or that his wife could find him in the middle of a forest away from their home with no explanation as to how. Also, the entire scene with Saeki's old pottery teacher is very abstract and has no real purpose in the film. On a positive note this film depicts Emiko's strength and patience and she almost takes over the film as a character.

In the end I think the director's attempt was more to provoke the viewer's feelings, rather than to show the honest devastation of such a disease. I will give it a decent rating because of the acting and the cinematography was beautiful. This film does have an emotional impact, but in a contrived way. In the end I felt sad, but I didn't really learn anything from this film. It's a shame to also have no sense of hope, closure, or understanding when touching upon such a serious topic.

A very touching film

[Gordon-11 · 28 June 2015]

This film tells the story of a successful executive in an advertising film, who notices that his memory is slipping away. He and his wife faces huge challenges to adjust to his new functional level.

I bought the DVD of "Memories of Tomorrow" years ago but haven't watched it until now. I wish I watched it earlier, because it is superb. Ken Watanabe's acting is very good, he convinces the viewers about his poor memory, his fear and confusion that he does not perform as he used to. In the second half of the film, the film focuses more on the wife. She is superb as an ever so supportive wife who is strained to the core, yet remains strong and positive. The film really highlights the butterfly effect of memory loss, both on the sufferer and the carers. Moreover, the film has a strong feel of realism, and events are not exaggerated at all. It touches me heart and I hope it will touch other people too.