Heaven's Bookstore (Tengoku no honya - koib / 戀火 -2004)

Starring:
Yuko Takeuchi ... Shoko/Natsuko
Tetsuji Tamayama ... Kenta
Karina ... Yui
Hirofumi Arai ... Satoshi
Teruyuki Kagawa ... Takimoto
Yoshio Harada ... Yamaki
Akashi Takei


KENTA (Tetsuji Tamayama), a young pianist who has just lost his job, is drowning his woes at a bar, when he meets a man in a Hawaiian shirt named YAMAKI (Yoshio Harada). He invites Kenta to work with him, and the next thing he knows, Kenta wakes up to find himself in a room he has never been in before. It is a strange room that seems to have no connection to life. He descends a staircase to find many shelves of books. Yamaki appears once again, and tells him that this is Heaven's Book Service and Kenta is going to start working a short-term part-time job here. In addition to selling books, this bookstore, owned by Yamaki, provides a service of reading aloud to customers. Although he is unsure of his new surroundings, Kenta follows their actions and starts to work in his new part-time job.

One day, Kenta meets SHOKO (Yuko Takeuchi) who had been the pianist that was the inspiration for him to first to start playing the piano. She was a gifted pianist whose promising future was destroyed when an accident caused her to have trouble in hearing.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, KANAKO (also by Yuko Takeuchi), the daughter of a Japanese patisserie store, is planning to bring back the fireworks show, which used to be held until 14 years ago. Everyone who watched the fireworks would look forward to the last piece, the "Loving Fireworks." It was told that couples that watch it together would be forever united in true love. However, the fireworks shows were discontinued when TAKIMOTO (Teruyuki Kagawa), a young fireworks technician had an accident that caused his fiancee to lose her hearing, and the tragedy lead him to disappear. The pianist, as it turns out, is Shoko, Kanako's aunt.



Okay, this was my second try at this movie. I watched maybe 15 minutes of the first time and was bored. I came across it again and realized that "Dang it!", Tetsuji-kun (my love) was in this and that I needed to finish it. Just because it bored me at the beginning didn't me it wouldn't pick up, right?

Wrong.

It was still slow...not as boring...but it wasn't heart-poundingly exciting either. There were a few moments of "ahh"ness to it. Yui and the realization of why she was in Heaven. Satoshi falling in love with her. *so sweet!* And then when Yui got to "meet" her brother. *sniff, sniff*

The ending was actually quite predictable so it wasn't like I melted or had to wipe away tears. Nope. It was nice but not awe inspiring. But it was nice to see "watashi no koibito". *sigh* That man has never, ever, ever, ever looked bad....EVER!