Drama

Romance

寝ても覚めても

C&I entertainment

Nagoya Broadcasting Network

Bitters End

Comme des Cinémas

Japan

English

日本語

Asako I & II

Erika Karata

Masahiro Higashide

Rio Yamashita

Sairi Ito

Koji Seto

Daichi Watanabe

Koji Nakamoto

Misako Tanaka

Takeshi Ōnishi

Ariei Umefune

Nao Okabe

Atsushi Kaneshige

Takao Kin

Maki Nishiyama

Atsushi Honma

Tatsuo Kobayashi

Ryotaro Yonemura

Fusako Urabe

Antoine Jouve

Yu Koreyasu

tofubeats

Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

Tomoka Shibasaki

Sachiko Tanaka

Yasuhiko Hattori

Yasuyuki Sasaki

Azusa Yamazaki

Yuji Sadai

Teruhisa Yamamoto

Koichiro Fukushima

Miki Nomura

With this film (following Happy Hour), Hamaguchi cements his role as the ultimate diviner of the chaos of human emotion. Few other directors can navigate this terrain with the empathic thoroughness of Hamaguchi.

In "Asako I & II", Hamaguchi explores love's most mercurial landscape through a narrative of uncanny resemblance and emotional displacement. The film's subtle genius lies in its exploration of how we construct and reconstruct romantic narratives.

A pivotal moment occurs in Shigeo Gocho's photography exhibition, where Asako contemplates a photograph of what appear to be identical twins. This visual meditation becomes a metaphorical key to the film's deeper inquiry: Are we loving individuals, or projections of our own emotional needs?

Baku and Ryohei - two men who look remarkably alike but represent radically different emotional territories - become less characters than psychological states. They are what Asako draws to herself via the power of attraction. The truth about the title is that Asako is the real doppelganger, albeit internally. Erika Karata (Asako) does an amazing job conveying her internal pas de deux.

Hamaguchi suggests that romantic attachment is less about the specific person and more about our internal emotional choreography. His real directorial brilliance is his refusal to judge - which we will see again in "Drive My Car" - creating a nuanced exploration of how memory, desire, and perception intertwine to create what we call love.

Official trailer

Clip

Best Movies

Asako I & II

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Erika Karata

Masahiro Higashide

Rio Yamashita

Sairi Ito

Koji Seto

Daichi Watanabe

Koji Nakamoto

Misako Tanaka

Takeshi Ōnishi

Ariei Umefune

Box office

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