Hooray, another international film for you to sink your teeth into!
For real though, if you’re still stuck and unable to hurdle the ‘one inch barrier’, a.k.a. the subtitles, I promise you’ll feel more enriched by Jessica Ennis-ing that shit. What I mean is, make like Ennis and get the fuck over it!
Whilst I Wish is nothing particularly new or groundbreaking in the foreign language film lexicon, one aspect of it completely correlates with every other Asian film I’ve seen: brilliant storytelling.
I’m still looking to pinpoint what exactly makes the storytelling so much more intriguing than that of Western cinema. I can only hazard a guess and say that Asian cinema tends to focus more on the characters in large part, rather than zoning in on what is happening around them. It is always much more about how a character would react to an occurrence rather than throwing multiple unlikely events at them, and I Wish proves this theory once again.
All of the young actors in this movie give very mature performances, especially the lead, played by a young man named Koki Maeda. Although he was only 12 years old at the time of filming, Maeda comes across as such an old soul who completely understands the complexity of human emotion and what it means to truly miss your family. Maeda and his co-star – and real-life younger brother – Oshiro Maeda completely dominate the movie in the best way, and are absolutely able to lead the film, even at their tender young ages.
This is a super cute movie when it comes down to it. It is a breath of fresh air, which will leave you feeling happy by the end. However, its often so understated that it borders on dragging at points, so it is a slightly tougher watch than some of the other international movies that I’ve reviewed previously.
Although I wouldn’t recommend it before some of the other non-English movies on TQR, it is still a good way to spend an evening.
I Wish is currently available to stream on All4 in the UK.
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