San Diego Asian Film Festival 2008

ALWAYS 2 takes place four months after the original ended (see our repeat screenings of Always part 1) – Tokyo Tower is now complete, though family patriarch Norifumi Suzuki (Shinichi Tsutsumi) is too scared to actually go up in it – and re-introduces audiences to all the major characters (played by the same actors from the original). There's the car repair shop-owning Suzuki and his wife (Hiroko Yakushimaru); their country-bred, lovelorn mechanic and de facto daughter Mutsuko (Maki Horikita); frustrated novelist neighbor Chagawa (Hidetaka Yoshioka) and his adopted son Junnosuke (Kenta Suga); and sad, kept woman Hiromi (Koyuki), who left Third Street at the end of the first film despite Chagawa's love for her, and is now working downtown as a dancer in a burlesque club. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics have been announced, and the entire country has begun an enthusiastic rush towards affluence and modernity, symbolized here by the arrival of Junnosuke's birth father in a fancy foreign car, who demands that Chagawa hand him over. Able to arrange a deal wherein Junnosuke can stay on Third Street if his standard of living remains adequately comfortable, Chagawa sets forth on the task that drives much of the film: trying to complete a new novel and win the coveted Akutagawa Literary Prize, and thus the respect of Junnosuke's father, with the entire neighborhood rooting for him. Meanwhile, the Suzuki household plays host to a new family member, in the form of Mika, a formerly affluent cousin whose father has fallen on hard times. The spoiled girl slowly insinuates herself into the Suzuki home, at first a playmate then as an innocent first love for son Ippei, but continually provides a rude reminder of just how bad the family's financial situation really is. Will the Suzukis and their hardscrabble neighbors be left behind in Tokyo's great rush forward into the second half of the 20th Century? Will their traditional values of friendship, hard work, sacrifice and family commitment be lost when the Japanese economy goes "boom?" And just how does Godzilla figure into all of this?

If you already know the residents of Third Street, you'll be entranced by their continued adventures and the sly nods to popular 50s icons scattered throughout the film, but even if you haven't seen the first one - keep in mind that we'll also be showing it for anybody who wants to follow the saga from the beginning - you'll catch up quickly and soon become embarrassed at just how hard a cynical 21st century American can fall in love with a feel-good blockbuster about poor Japanese people in the 1950s.
(reprinted from New York Asian Film Festival)

Post-reception will follow the film. (Included with ticket)

Co-presented by:
Buddhist Temple of San Diego
Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana
San Diego Japanese Language & Culture Meetup Group