Japanese Story, a soapy, melodramtic, yet often quite promising exercise bounds along on a premise that is just interesting enough. It is held up partly by an amazing performance by Toni Collette, trying to rise the film above it's painfully obvious "tear-jerker" style in a feat worthy of Atlas. The script and direction aren't all bad, though. They're just never quite good either. Certaintly, they have photographed Australia in a way that is visually stunning, and not just touristically appealing. Alison Tilson has written some good dialouge as well as some bad dialouge, and Sue Brooks as director brings some needed style to the film.

The problem, I think, is that the film is so obvious just when we don't want it to be. The places where we hope for an original touch here and there, such as the personalities of its two leads, are totally unsatisfying. Instead, it's "Wow, look at the amazing cultural differences between these two!"

The final third of the film is where we get a truly great, rewardingly unexpected turn; and the film begins to redeem itself even as it also drags on for far longer than it has the right to. It suffers from what many critics such as myself call "Multiple Ending Syndrome", the most painful symptom of which is that the dramtic end theme music continually seems to be reaching the close before it starts up again to repeat itself.

Rating: [2 ½ stars]