Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl meets boy’s doppelgänger – but who loves who the most?…
The nature of love and infatuation and the delicate balance of power in relationships is explored in this gentle film, based on a prize-winning novel by Tomoka Shibasaki, who co-authored the screenplay with director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (Happy Hour).
Erika Karata plays Asako, an introverted young woman who falls deeply and madly in love with Baku, a charismatic if chaotic young man she meets by chance at a photo exhibition. Their attraction is instant and their relationship intense and tumultuous from the start: Asako is completely besotted. This is much to the dismay of not only her best friend Haruyo (Sairi Itô), although Baku’s friend Okazaki’s mother eggs her on, fuelled by memories of her own romantic youth. Ignoring warnings that Baku is an irresponsible flake, Asako is devastated when he suddenly disappears without a trace, despite promising he’ll come back for her. Flash forward a few years and Asako is living in Tokyo where she meets office worker Ryohei – the spitting image of her old love Baku. Unsurprisingly, Shibasaki plays both roles and makes them believably different, although a shaggy hairstyle should get some credit.
Asko is initially convinced that Ryohei is her lost love, but finds out quickly that Ryohei is a very different character. While Baku was an impulsive bohemian who DJ’d at the weekends and lived upstairs at his friend’s place, Ryohei has a steady salaryman job, does voluntary work and has his own apartment.
His interest piqued by their initial interactions, Ryohei begins to pursue Asako with the help of her actor friend Maya (Rio Yamashita) and his wing-man colleague Kushihashi (Kōji Seto). Asako seems interested too, but largely because Ryohei reminds her of her first true love. After a few false starts, the pair end up dating and form a tight-knit foursome with Maya and Kushihashi, who have also fallen in love despite a rocky start. When Ryohei is offered a job in Osaka, he asks Asako to marry him and she agrees, but not before confessing that she had once dated Baku, who’s now a famous model. Ryohei admits he has known for some time and that he’s fine about it – after all, that’s the reason they’re together.
But who should turn up and send Asako into a spin at the 11th hour? After bumping into her old Baku-era friend Haruyo, she finds out her old love is also in town and his face is plastered over every billboard. Asako decides to put the past behind her and say goodbye, but Baku has other plans: he’s come back to honour his promise and whisk Asako away. But will she choose the roller-coaster that is life with Baku, or settle for the steady carousel of marriage to Ryohei? What happens when one person in a relationship loves the other more – or less – deeply than the other? To avoid spoilers I’ll leave it there: suffice to say the relationship Asako ends up with is irreparably altered by the path she chooses.
Like Hamaguchi’s last film Happy Hour, Asako I & II explores romantic love and its infinite variations, although it’s not quite as sprawling – or long. But it has the same deft handling of interpersonal relationships, smart dialogue and naturalistic acting that makes the viewer forget the rather far-fetched central premise.