To the Ends of the Earth

2019 [JAPANESE]

Drama

8
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 53% · 44 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 53%
IMDb Rating 6.7/10 10 1979 2K

uzbekistan

Plot summary

A young Japanese woman named Yoko finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety show.

Director

Kiyoshi Kurosawa Photo
Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Top cast

Ryô Kase Photo
Ryô Kase as Iwao
Atsuko Maeda Photo
Atsuko Maeda as Yoko
Shôta Sometani Photo
Shôta Sometani as Yoshioka
Tokio Emoto Photo
Tokio Emoto as Sasaki
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
1.08 GB
1280*534
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   cn  
23.976 fps
2 hr 0 min
Seeds 5
2.22 GB
1920*800
Japanese 5.1
NR
Subtitles us   cn  
23.976 fps
2 hr 0 min
Seeds 19

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by gbill-74877 6 / 10

Beautiful concept, listless plot

As soaring as Atsuko Maeda's rendition of Edith Piaf's Hymne à l'Amour is to the backdrop of the mountains surrounding Tashkent, Uzbekistan, this is a rather flat film. Maeda plays a TV journalist traveling with a small crew to capture a travelogue of sorts. In some of the film's best moments, we see her flip her TV personality on like a light switch and become animated, which is quite a contrast to the pensive person she is while not on camera. We also see how she's treated a bit like a prop by the crew, certainly not being in control and forced, for example, to ride a nausea-inducing rickety deathtrap of an amusement park ride more than once, with little regard for what it was doing to her. As a young woman, she's also eyed warily by the locals, but we ultimately see that they are reasonable and kind, which was probably part of the film's larger goal, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between Japan and Uzbekistan.Unfortunately, director (and writer) Kiyoshi Kurosawa just didn't put together a compelling enough story, or to expand on its numerous subplots in a satisfying way. The forced labor to build the Navoi Theater by Japanese POW's after WWII was mentioned but undeveloped further, and other incidents like the young woman's boyfriend being at risk because of a fire in Tokyo she sees on the TV felt the same way, just failed attempts at plot escalation. She wanders aimlessly and awkwardly (if not recklessly) through markets, perhaps a metaphor for her character aimlessly moving through life in a job she doesn't enjoy when her real passion is singing, but I didn't feel any real soul searching here. It's unfortunate because being transported to Uzbekistan, the culture clash, the window into the artificiality of tourism, and the main character's personal crisis were all of interest to me, and I feel the film could have been so much better. It had its moments though.
Reviewed by cdcrb 5 / 10

a better world?

A japanese film crew in uzbekistan. on the cheap. making a travelogue. the "star" of the show, is a young japanese woman, with a lot of moxie. for reasons i could not comprehend, she keeps wandering off by herself in a totally unfamiliar country, with no language skills or smarts. anyway this seems to be a message movie. we're all the same, all we need is dialog between us to make a better world. or something like that. it didn't move me.
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