Ken Watanabe: The Ultimate Tough Guy’s Other Side
The award-winning actor usually plays samurai or generals, but produces and stars in a touching film about a young Alzheimer’s victim and how it affects his family
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Memories of Tomorrow was a hit in Japan and Watanabe won the Japanese Academy Award for his honest, meticulously researched performance.
“Before making the script we met a real patient and his family. I was building my character all the while, always thinking how this person behaves, feels and thinks. That’s how I connected the feelings. From my research I knew that when patients lose their memories they don’t lose their emotions. They still laugh and smile and feel things.”
Memories of Tomorrow has had limited release in the U.S. and it almost passed by Hawaii without a showing.
The fact that we now have the opportunity to see it is thanks to the enthusiasm of Hawaii resident Pono Shim. Shim, who owns the concierge concession at the Ward 16 theaters, read an online interview with the actor. He was intrigued enough to send an e-mail to the movie’s distributor, who sent him a screening copy of the film.
“I was so impressed,” he says, and passed it along to the booker at Consolidated.
It worked. Memories of Tomorrow is scheduled to open Friday, Sept. 28 at Ward Stadium 16 for a short, one-week run.
“But that can change if it does really well,” Shim says.
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To ensure its success, he’s held screenings for people in the community, including the Alzheimer’s Association, government figures and churches. Shim says their reactions have been unanimous.
“They said, please bring it to Hawaii.”
I’m hoping you’ll go see it for the incredible performances of Ken Watanabe and Kanako Higuchi.
But what will make you love the movie is the simple truth of its message: The really important things in life are there for us to savor, if only we would stop to notice them. Saeki, who is about to lose everything, comes to the realization that he has allowed too much to pass him by.
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There is a moment in which Saeki, momentarily lost in an Alzheimer’s fog, misplaces the speech he prepared for his daughter’s wedding. He panics, says he cannot go on. But Emiko props him up. My love, she says, please do it. And Saeki understands. He must say what is in his heart. He cannot let this moment pass.
His daughter’s joyous smile, the love and tears on his wife’s face, the imminent birth of his grandchild - all these things will in the end be lost to him forever.
But for now, for this precious day, he will cherish them as gifts, making memories for tomorrow.
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