I-Wish-Blu-rayReleased in Japan almost two years ago, Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest film, I Wish, finally arrived on our shores earlier this year, and it was well worth the wait. Centred around two young brothers growing up apart from each other, in the wake of their parents’ divorce, the film is a wondrous and heartfelt journey as they wish for a miracle to reunite their families when the first trains pass each other on the new bullet train service.

These young child actors and their on-screen friends are flawless throughout, and it’s incredibly rare to see such bright talent from children this young, especially amongst a group size of seven. Their performances, alongside the adults surrounding them, bring a real charm to the screen that feels so genuine and uplifting, and they are an integral part as to why it’s been worth the wait to see I Wish.

We open on the young Koichi (Koki Maeda), growing up in Kagoshima, living beside the famous live volcano, Sakurajima, which continues to drop volcanic ash on its surrounding areas. Following his parents’ divorce, he has stayed with his mother and moved in with his maternal grandparents, whilst his younger brother, Ryu (Oshiro Maeda), has moved to Fukuoka with his father, with a brotherhood promise to take care of him in their mother’s absence.

Koichi is soon told by a man in the street that the possibility remains that Sakurajima will have another big eruption, as it has in the past, and force everyone living in the area to move out. And thus the seed of a wish is planted in his mind. And when he overhears from a friend that you can make a wish when the first trains meet coming in opposite directions on the newly-built line of the Bullet Train, and it will come true, he is determined to be at that point and to make that wish, so that his family can be reunited.

What follows is almost like a Japanese version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as the children sneak their way out of school to go on this adventure – though the feel is naturally entirely different to John Hughes’ classic. Koreeda’s children are much younger, for one, and he brings to the screen a magical kind of coming-of-age story about the brothers making their way to the meeting point, each bringing a handful of friends along for the journey, so that they can make their wish together when the first trains meet.

One of the things that makes this film so brilliant is that Koreeda doesn’t just focus on these two brothers, and have the other characters for fairly extraneous support. He delves into each and every one of these children’s dreams, and those of their adult parents and relatives too, and makes this a true ensemble piece.

The chemistry of the young Koki and Oshiro Maeda on screen is flawless, and no doubt helped by the fact that they are brothers in real life. The younger Oshiro has perhaps the single greatest smile I have ever seen on a child actor, with Koki contrastingly bringing a perfectly serious demeanour to his more sombre character.

The young children are at a pivotal time in their lives, when anything is possible – and not just seems possible, but is possible. The loss of that perspective, going from is to seems, is something that Koreeda astutely notes in the special features has come to be known as ‘growing up’, and that time being both a loss and a growth is, as he describes, a beautiful thing. It is a beauty that radiates throughout this magical film, and just one of so many reasons why I Wish is a delightful gem worth seeking out.

[Rating:4.5/5]

 

Special Features:

The special features section is unfortunately slightly lacking, boasting only a trailer and a featurette.

On the plus side, however, the featurette is a very healthy forty minutes in length, and goes into great detail about much of the making of the movie, including the auditions, what it was like for the cast to work with the director, and plenty more.

Koreeda talks about how the film evolved from his original idea of it being a boy-meets-girl scenario, and how that changed upon meeting real-life brothers Koki and Oshiro Maeda, who become the on-screen brothers in I Wish.

It would have been nice to have a feature commentary or two, but at forty minutes long, the featurette goes into plenty of detail for those interested in how the film was made.

[Rating:3.5/5]

I Wish is available on DVD and Blu-ray now.

[yframe url=’www.youtube.com/watch?v=05jKUWmgBQM’]