Warm Water Under a Red Bridge [DVD]

The movie starts out as a sort of thoughtful, sensitive tale of a down and out salary man who, upon the death of a friend among a group of even more down and out individuals living on the fringe of society. He starts out on a treasure hunt, but eventually finds that the real treasure is in the woman he meets, along with the other people he finds in a quirky seaside fishing village. There is an exaggerated mystic element thrown in, hence the title, which is entertaining, if oddly handled. But the film goes completely off the rails at the end, for reasons only the film maker can know. Thus the 3 stars. I love Japanese culture, and film in general. But I don't quite understand the need for going off on such wild tangents.In any case, it is worth watching. There are so many interesting characters who will add flavor and interest in this unusual take.

A watchable humorous lite comedy about a married laid off Japanese worker whom spends his job hunting time with a drifter who reads novels in his ocean front shack. The drifter tells him of a gold statue he hid at a boarding home,but never went back to. He is invited to retrieve it and sell it to support himself. Upon arriving at the home he falls for a woman whom can only pee (in vast amounts) after sex. This keeps the fishing economy profitable in the area. Way out there!

"You know yourself it's an impossible tale" scoff the g-ds at the end of the diverse fantasy story. Complicated enough to have been interesting and adequately photographed and produced to be worthy of three stars.

I guess it was ok. It's been a week and it has dropped from my mind, no lasting impression.

the story is original, acting is good and the end is surprising as well as interesting. worth the time.

After reading reviews, I decided to take a chance on this film. I was pleasantly suprised by the acting, content and storyline. For those that must know, it's an adult comedy. Yes, there were serious parts in the film, but to say more is to give it away. Somehow, someway, I think there are people that may relate to the characters (needing love, having to have needs fulfilled, etc). The only reason why I didn't give the movie 5 stars is the very, very end of the move. I had an issue with the treatment of the passing of one of the characters (too quick, not enough depth). None-the-less, a good film! Four stars!

A goofy Japanese film with a lot of reading subtitles. I kept hitting the fast forward button.

In this oddball romantic comedy, the primary female character regularly fills up with water and has to do "wicked deeds" in order to get relief. She shop-lifts for items she does not need or want (except sometimes she takes cheese, which she always eats), and the water then gushes from her body. "It's not urine," she says. Happily, illicit sex gives her the same remarkable relief that shop-lifting does. If one can suspend judgement about the absurdity of the water premise, the film is quite charming, well-acted, and humorous.

Taro is an old man who has had a colourful life as a rootless drifter through postwar Japan. He lost his family in the American air raids on Tokyo and thereafter was so poor that he had to steal to eat and survive. For his thieving he spent time in prison. Now he's homeless and lives along a concrete Tokyo riverbank with other homeless persons. Among his few possessions is a small library of books he keeps in his ramshackle tent shack. Because of his bookishness he is known as the Philosopher, and indeed he likes to think and reflect. Living on the margins of society has sharpened his insight into the human condition.Yosuke is a 40-year-old unemployed salaryman (white-collar worker) whom Taro has taken under his wing. The old man challenges Yosuke's conservative, conventional view of life with offbeat comments about his version of the good life. For instance, Taro's theory of history:“Man's been a lecher all through history. The ruling class never had to worry about survival. They could devote all their energies to food and sex. That's been the ideal from ancient times. Squeeze what they could from the peasants, then enjoy the degenerate life. ...People today are sick. Too educated to honestly admit to their desires.”He also gives this advice to Yosuke:“Forget all the trivialities and throw yourself into lasciviousness. Look, everything else aside, enjoy life while you can still get a hard-on. It's no laughing matter. Be serious about it.”Yosuke is doubtlessly drawn to the Philosopher because subliminally he finds his talk attractive. He can hardly imagine for himself the life Taro describes, but he loves the freeing sound of it.Yosuke's cell phone rings for the umpteeth time. He knows who it will be — his wife. She's a grasping, selfish, demanding harridan. Her voice is condescending, sarcastic, designed to humiliate and emasculate him. She badgers him to find work and send money, her voice devoid of affection and compassion. Instead, she complains that their young son is listless because of his father's inability to provide for him and her. Guilt will do the trick, she hopes.Taro tells Yosuke a story of lost love, of a treasure he once had but did not keep. There was a beauty he met many years ago on one of his rambles. She lived in a fishing village by the sea in a house with a sweet shop downstairs. The house was next to a red bridge at a point where the river meets the sea, the fishing at this point particularly rich. A local legend says fish are drawn to the warm water near the bridge, a spot which still attracts anglers.Taro adds to the partial truth of this tale by making it taller. The treasure, he says, is a golden Buddha statue worth at least a million yen that he stole from a temple in Kyoto years ago. He left it behind in the house in Noto, the peninsula on the Sea of Japan where the red bridge is located. He tells Yosuke to go there and find the treasure.Yosuke takes it all in, but not seriously. He still thinks his destiny is to stay in Tokyo, find new work, resuscitate himself, please his wife, get back on track. But one autumn day the Philosopher dies. The Philosopher's friend says to Yosuke:“Poor bugger. He made it through the hot days of summer. He was fine two days ago. But now he's dead.”Yosuke feels bereft, adrift, his prospects in Tokyo zero, his future uncertain and problematic. He remembers vividly a speech Taro had made to him:“You should think more and more or your brain cells will rot. The corporate culture doesn't want the workers to think. They want fools who'll work all their lives without complaining. This layoff gives you a good chance to sit and think. The real meaning of freedom is to think for yourself and reach your own conclusions. Only that will make you happy.”On the basis of this and much else Taro had said to him he scrapes together what money he can and alights by train to Noto on the coast. As quixotic and absurd as it sounds, he will find the treasure there. He will redeem himself and reclaim his life.He arrives. He finds the village, the red bridge, the house with the sweet shop. In it a senile old woman lives with her eccentric granddaughter. Saeko, the granddaughter, is attractive, single, about 30. Everyone in the village knows her and her reputation. A strange legend has grown up around her. She is the source of the warm water under the red bridge. No one knows how but she is a kind of water nymph, a beached mermaid. She fills with water mysteriously and cannot release it by normal means. Only through wicked sorcery can it be vented, the most convenient of which is through passionate sex.Yosuke arrives at the house on an afternoon when Saeko is bursting. Already in the local supermarket beforehand he saw her leave a wet puddle behind on the floor. She happened to drop a gold earring in the puddle, which Yosuke fetched to return to her. This he does. She invites him upstairs for an eccentric afternoon snack of European cheeses to be eaten with ice. Beside herself during the meal, Saeko thrusts herself upon him. She rides him as a geyser spray of water shoots up between them. She has vented. She thanks him over and over again for this kindness, a kindness Yosuke realises he would be happy to repeat for her should opportunity arise. Happily, it does — many times thereafter.He stays in Noto, takes a job as a fisherman, runs to her house from the fishing boat when she signals to him from the wooden verandah using sunlight reflected from a mirror. The other fisherman in the boat, all locals, know Yosuke is hooked and landed like a fish, but say nothing.Time passes and certain truths are revealed. Yosuke's wife back in his old world wants a divorce. Saeko's grandmother was Taro's lover. Saeko herself may even be Taro's granddaughter. And the treasure? We're led to believe it's probably the gold of love that Yosuke finds in Saeko, the woman his wife never was, a woman of imagination and passion.The warm water attracts fish, fishermen, lovers and legends. Was Saeko's grandmother the same as Saeko in her day? Was she a water nymph too? Has warm water always been running under the red bridge? Taro never said so, so we are free to imagine it for ourselves. But this would give the story perfect symmetry, two rootless men attracted by love and desire, two apparent losers in life redeemed by the passion of beautiful water nymphs.The story ends with Taro himself as narrator saying it's an impossible tale. Yes, if you are conventional, but no if you're a dreamer.

Le film est vraiment exellent, mais je trouve étonnant qu'il y ai qu'une seule langue dispo pour les sous titres.

The film is nice!

Se il film piace viene spontaneo cercare la migliore riduzione su DVD: su un sito si trova il lavoro di confronto già fatto e in maniera veramente approfondita; ho provato a segnalarlo, ma Amazon ha tolto il link: per trovarlo basta cercare "warm water under a red bridge dvd" e scegliere il sito dvdbeaver punto com; ne vale la pena :)Il film è assai piacevole; anche se si parla di sesso non presenta la minima scabrosità o scena pornografica e si può mostrare anche ad adolescenti piccoli. Favolosa e azzeccatissima la colonna sonora di Shinichirô Ikebe. Ovviamente in inglese, ma il doppiaggio italiano incredibilmente esiste e si potrebbe fare un lavoretto di giunzione...

Another great film from master director Shohei Imamura. All his films are worth checking out.