Now, I'm Going to Meet You

One of the great thing about having cable at your house, is having choices at the tip of your finger. My favorite past time concerning TV is browsing channels while not particularly watching anything.

In one these time wasting activity, I stumble this little gem, a Japanese movie called Ima, ai ni yukimasu (Now, I'm Going to Meet You (2004), in one of the channels.

The story starts out as your usual drama movies. After fighting a long time illness, Mio (Yuko Takeuchi) finally passed away. She left Takumi (Shido Nakamura) her grieving husband and Yuji(Akashi Takei), her son, to live on their own.

The family of two really struggled at first. Takumi suffered a medical condition since high school that made him suffered fainting spells if he got too excited. He's feeling guilty that Mio wasted her life by taking care of him until her death. Yuji wondered whether he was responsible for her mother illness (Mio's health took a downturn after giving birth). The only thing that kept Yuji remotely happy is that a storybook that Mio created for him. The book shows that Mio will come back one year later during the rainy season, before returning to what she called, 'The Star Archive'.


This is where the movie is getting interesting. On the first day of the rainy season, both Yuji and Takumi found a woman with striking resemblance to Mio, right in the place where the storybook said Mio will return. However this person seems to suffer amnesia since she didn't remember anything, her name, her life before showing up there, and she definitely didn't remember Takumi and Yuji. Nevertheless, they took her home and take her to heart, believing that Mio has come back from the dead. They all lived happily until they found out the reason behind all this.

It's very rare a movie can mixed drama, supernatural, and perhaps science fiction elements, and provide a touching story about love and sacrifice. The movie itself took time in revealing all the facts, but when it did, it really hit home and fits the puzzle perfectly.

The ending itself is curiously good. It's not what I called a regular happy ending, but you felt heartwarmingly satisfied when the credits rolled. Perhaps because even with the other wordly element, this movie is essentially a story about how love prevails.

I also read that this movie has been opted for a 2009 Hollywood remake. I really hope though, that when the adaptation come out next year, it will make people to want to watch the original.