The Sea Is Watching (2002)

The Sea is Watching starts off as an attractive film; rich colors, effective photography, nice framing, fetching prostitutes. Then it goes melodrama, followed by silly, culminating in corny which brought a smile to my face before the surreal kicked in. It never stops looking good, though. I give it high marks for that.There's nothing particularly new or groundbreaking story-wise, but it is a charming, sometimes funny, bittersweet tale of the inhabitants of a samurai-era brothel whose entire district ends up under water. Plot-wise it focuses on the love lives of two of the working girls: Kikuno (Misa Shimizu) plays an elder to the younger girls and enjoys being the object of pursuit, never giving in to the suitors who want to take care of her and take her for their very own; and Oshin (Nagiko Tono) who, against the advice of those around her, seems to fall in love with every one of her clients. One of them, a sweet samurai type, visits her often and convinces her that her "fallen soul" and "soiled body" can become pure again—just like a person's hair, nails, and teeth fall out and grow back. "A body can become pure again ... it would be too horrible for words if it weren't true".Oshin is the main protagonist of the film and is meant to give it an emotional center as her heart breaks and yearns, but it never quite happens. Although Shimizu and Tono give good performances, overall the acting is not one of the film's high points. I recommend the film to those wanting a taste of historical Japanese culture and who enjoy quiet films about love, loss, and friendship. Yes, the ladies are prostitutes but they have feelings too.

The film is obviously based on several distinct stories, which would make it a good TV series if done right. The potential is there, making me wish I could read the original short stories. But in this script, there were far too many overly sentimental plot twists and "mass appeal" characterizations.My biggest complaint is that the women were much more like waitresses or airline attendants than they were like prostitutes. They were all weepy "heart of gold" types, quite unlike women who really are "in the life."***** Spoilers here ***** Of the two main stories, the first one was just implausible. Why would the women hold out such hopes for O-shin's marriage to the young samurai? More to the point, why were these women of the streets so distraught over such mundane bad news?In the last story, why on Earth would the fallen-again O-shin lose her head to yet another man? As I said, this is more in keeping with flight attendants than prostitutes.I also found the music terrible, so sweet it made my stomach hurt. It's as though the director couldn't decide whether this was to be like a daytime soap opera or a "slice of life" portrayal of a voiceless strata of society.In conclusion, this seems to be part of a genre that is more common in Asia than elsewhere, fantasies in which kind-hearted naive men help to soften the hearts of prostitutes. I have seen several Thai movies and a few Chinese ones that fit this mold. Compare it to the British film "My Son the Fanatic" and you can see why I find this stuff silly.

This is a wonderful movie about a brothel in a fishing village, that could be best described with scene constellations and direction of old Kurosawa's works, combined with Dostoyevski's topics of human psychology (O-shin - Sonia Marmeladova ), Shakespeare's drama and Hans Christian Andersen's tragic and cheerfulness. The screenplay is wondrous, the scenes are colour- and beautiful some scenes stay really imprinted in my mind. The plot is interesting and unpredictable - each of the characters is very well developed and interesting - there is also a little action, so if you don't like all the sentiments you'd also come to your costs - . It is not about mysterious Geishas and proud Samurai with their Bushido pouring all out of them, but about life, work and kinds of people found everywhere at any time. A lovely and fascinating tribute to Kurosawa, certainly worth seeing.

Artistically speaking, this is a beautiful movie--the cinematography, music and costumes are gorgeous. In fact, this movie is prettier than those directed by Akira Kurasawa himself. In this case, he only wrote the movie as it was made several years after his death.So, as far as the writing goes, the dialog was well-written and the story, at times, was interesting. However, the story was also rather depressing yet uninvolving in some ways--after all, it's the story of a group of women who work in a brothel. It's interesting that although prostitution has been seen as a much more acceptable business in Japan, the women STILL long for a better life. This reminds me a lot of the movie Streets Of Shame, though Streets Of Shame's characters are a lot less likable and more one-dimensional.So, overall it gets a 7--mostly due to everything BUT the writing. It's too bad that the weakest link in this movie is the story by the great Kurasawa.