Touches You

Awesome Movie

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

When looking into foreign movies they are not originally made for a vast public like Americans. Japanese culture is nothing like American or European culture, its actually the exact opposite. You may not understand everything about that through this movie and you should not judge the movie because you don't understand it. This movie is a great movie, it has decent acting, most can agree the plot is predictable at times. For everyone who did not like the move because it seemed rather strange try to re-watch it with an open mind. Recommendations for people who like Japanese movies include: Tokyo Sonata and The Departures. Two very good movies not as humorous but tell a lot about the Japanese culture and also have great plots.

Speaking as a member of the computer geek community, this film accurately portrays what it's like to be today's connected computer geek with absolutely no social skills. ...and what it's like for them to date someone from outside that community of geeks. (Wow; I'm glad I'm more socialized now than I was). This reminds me a lot of the love stories found in anime cartoons. Great acting, great plot twists. But the characters are not deep enough for this to be a truly great movie that would merit a 10/10 vote. This is a movie with real actors on the screen, not cartoons, but the characters are as two-dimensional as a cartoon. Oh; I need an obligatory 10th line: Um, I was surprised I couldn't find it on Netflix. (that should do it...)

My wife went back to Japan over Christmas and, as usual, returned with a suitcase full of video cassettes that her parents and friends had recorded for her. Amongst the tapes this time was a series of TV shows called Train Man which, so I'm told, is a spin-off series from this film. I didn't watch the tapes because they were sans English subtitles, but my wife explained the plot to me which sounded marginally interesting.My wife enjoyed the tapes enough that she ordered this film on DVD and we sat down to watch it last night.Oh dear - not my kind of film at all. I guess it can best be described as a romantic comedy, but there was precious little comedy to be seen. The romance was of the type I associate with Japanese TV - schmaltzy, twee and hopelessly overwrought. The acting was nothing special - in fact, I found the Train Man character himself to be particularly unbelievable and his hammy mannerisms to be deeply irritating.Overall I find it difficult to recommend this film - it's just a below average TV show stretched out to an hour and forty minutes.

The Train Man spends his days either working in the back of an office building aiding his fellow employees with his computer skills or wandering the shops in Akihabara purchasing anime and manga paraphernalia, video games, and other things that otaku enjoy. Living in his parent's home, the Train Man is ensconced within the safe confines of his fandom, but he is far from content. At 22 years old the Train Man has yet to have a girlfriend and in fact feels that he is undeserving of a woman's love. However, one day upon the train his humdrum life changes completely.After purchasing a few random anime knickknacks, the Train Man boards a train and is soon humiliated by a couple when they notice the items that he has purchased. Yet, it is on this same train that the love of the Train Man's life boards. Of course, being painfully shy, the Train Man does not approach the woman, but when she is later accosted by a drunken salaryman, played by the abrasive Osugi Ren, the Train Man comes to the woman's aid. Although terrified of the larger man, the Train Man stands his ground and defends the woman who has already grasped his heart.In order to thank the Train Man, the woman asks for his address and soon sends him a couple of Hermes tea cups. Having no real life friends to turn to, the Train Man does what a number of other otaku do: turn to the Internet for help. On a message board, seven people come to the Train Man's aid, including three otaku who hang out everyday at a manga café, a lonely nurse who cannot get over her boyfriend, a shut-in, or Hikikomori in Japanese, a person who has basically cut themselves off from the world and generally pursue their hobbies in their home while being supported by their parents, and a husband and wife whose relationship is on the rocks. With the aid of these individuals the Train Man pursues his romance. However, can the Train Man truly rely on others for the pursuit of his own happiness? I was honestly reluctant to watch this film at first mainly because I thought the story was quite hackneyed: nerdy guy meets beautiful girl and lives happily ever after. However, Train Man escapes this cliché because of the sympathetic if pathetic figure cut by the actor Yamada Takayuki. Certain scenes in which the Train Man, Yamada's character's name of the message board, talks to Hermes, the name the Train Man gives the woman of his dreams on the message board, on the phone or in person are almost painful to watch because his nervousness is almost palpable. I found myself both encouraging and cursing the Train Man in my mind when he was trying to take the relationship to the next level. Also, I think that the interaction amongst the message board members was quite humorous and well done. Also major kudos to the caster for casting Nakatani Miki in the role of Hermes. Nakatani, although very attractive, is not as stunning as Ito Misaki who played the role of Hermes in the televised version of Train Man. However, Nakatani's character is incredibly sweet and one can easily feel why the Train Man becomes so enraptured with her. A fun film that pulls at the heartstrings, Train Man does a wonderful job reviving a threadbare genre. Since the film is based on a true story, one wonders if a number of nerdy Japanese guys have come to the aid of woman being harassed on trains since its release?