Khoi Vinh’s review published on Letterboxd:
I went into this lauded Wim Wenders joint expecting something quite ascetic and meditative. For the first half, it's largely that. There are long, deliberate shots of Kōji Yakusho’s lead character performing simple, everyday tasks with great intention and care—it makes for compelling, almost riveting action. I was surprised to find the second half growing suddenly more plot-ty, with the sudden introduction of complications from family, friends and maybe even lovers. Sometimes these are fine, but others are surprisingly incongruous—a subplot involving a coworker almost seems cartoonish. None of these is damaging enough to undo the eloquence of Yakusho’s performance, or Wenders’s judicious direction, but I can imagine a different cut of the film that omits them altogether, whittles down the running time by at least thirty minutes, and qualifies as an unmistakable masterpiece.
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