Heartwarming romance on Netflix is a heart and soul love
“Your Eyes Say” is a 2020 Japanese film directed by Takahiro Miki. The feature film is a remake of the Korean “Always”, from 2011, directed by Il-gon Song. The plot tells the story of Rui (Ryûsei Yokohama) and Akari (Yuriko Yoshitaka), two young people with a troubled past who fall in love. Rui is a former kickboxing fighter who wasted his career by accepting a job as a professional assassin for the Yakuza. Arrested for his crimes, he is released some time later and tries to rebuild his discreet and lonely life as an ordinary worker in the metropolis.
One day he meets Akari, a sweet and adorable blind young woman with a keen sense of smell and a tragic past. She lost both her parents and her eyesight after a serious car accident. Unaware of Rui’s past, she approaches him and charms him with her naivety and sweetness. When she is sexually assaulted by her boss, Rui heroically shows up to save her, but she is worried that she might lose her job. After all, it is not easy for a person without vision to get a job on the labor market. Rui promptly offers to support her.
The two move in together without any romance leaving the platonic. Gradually, in an almost childlike and simple love, they discover themselves as a couple. As their relationship develops, the film incorporates flashbacks to place the viewer in their past. Akari had just gotten her driver’s license when her parents and she decided to leave. She, behind the wheel, sees a burning body falling from the top of a building. Soon, a crazy driver crosses the car in front of her car, causing the accident that blinds her and kills her parents.
When she tells her story to Rui, he immediately recognizes the moment when he was the one responsible for the crash. He feels guilty and does everything to look after and protect Akari, but he doesn’t have the courage to tell her the truth.
He tries to re-establish himself in kickboxing, but finds ghosts from his past intent on tormenting him. These dangerous men might want to hit you where it hurts the most, Akari. That’s why he prefers to walk away to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. There are twists and turns and the forces of fate try to bring them together despite the past that undermines the romance.
A love story full of improbabilities and difficulties, which heightens the melodrama and incites passion. The feature film has an ethereal and dreamlike photography, perhaps because romance seems like an illusion in both of their broken lives and perhaps their only chance for happiness. But a happiness so fragile and delicate that it must be carried with the greatest care.
A sensitive and passionate film which, on top of that, talks about love between people, talks about self-love. About how we are hard on ourselves, able to forgive others, but not our own mistakes and shortcomings. It’s about guilt and redemption, about rebuilding burned bridges and reconnecting with ourselves through other people. Sometimes just another one to see in us the qualities and the chance we deserve and which we cannot recognize.
Movie: Your Eyes Say
Direction: Takahiro Miki
Year: 2020
Sex: Romance
Note: 8/10
