Truly Dreadful Film

Admirable film.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Niki Caro directed this romantic drama from New Zealand, adapted from Peter Wells' story, Of Memory & Desire, about the doomed affair of a Japanese couple on their honeymoon in New Zealand. The body of Keiji (Eugene Nomura) is pulled ashore on a New Zealand beach; his widow Sayo (Yuri Kinugawa) then tells the tale in flashback: Attracted to Keiji, Sayo marries him over the objections of his mother (Yoko Narahashi). Keiji becomes depressed when it seems he cannot consummate their marriage. However, they succeed in their hotel room and also later at a beach cave where Keiji carves the word "love" inside the cave before tragedy strikes. In Tokyo, Sayo rebels against Keiji's family. Returning to New Zealand, she suffers mental collapse as she constructs a shrine in the cave.