Title: Love on Sunday 2: Last Words aka Koi Suru Nichiyobi Watashi Koishita
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Hiroki Ryuichi
Format: Movie, 97 minutes.
Dates: 9 June 2007

Synopsis: Nagisa is sick. So sick she has only a few months to live. Thus she ventures back to her hometown to reunite herself with a man she harbored feelings for. But he seems to have another woman that he is interested in. What will happen to Nagisa as she spends her last months with the man she so wishes to confess to?

The Highlights
Cinematography: Much better; shaky camera problems still present.
Acting: Horikita Maki shines.
Story: Good.
Ending: Unforgettable.

If Love on Sunday and Love on Sunday 2: Last Words had a child, it would be “Love on Sunday 3: All the Kinks Worked Out”. In my opinion, such a film would be great.

While the cinematography was anything but flawless, it was better than Love on Sunday. There were less shaky-hand-held, un-blocked shots. The cinematography was fittingly superb for the bittersweet tour guide scene. That this scene was supposedly shot with a single take makes it even more impressive and incredible. The tour guide scene is perhaps the best scene in not only Last Words but both Love on Sunday movies (incidentally the first Love on Sunday has absolutely nothing to do with Last Words besides some “stylistic elements”). A product of good filmmaking and a wonderful acting performance, it is easily my favorite scene.

Sue me, but I’m a fan of Horikita Maki. So perhaps I might be a little more partial towards her as the lead actress than I was to the lead actress of Love on Sunday. I felt as if she had brought the character of Nagisa to real life. She really did shine in a performance where too much overacting would become silly and unrealistic. Luckily, the screenplay did not seem as if it called for a lot of melodramatic overacting. Personally, I think it would be interesting to see the story of Love on Sunday performed by the cast of Last Words.

In my opinion, the story of the first film was slightly better. The first one took place in a twenty-four hour timespan, compared to Last Words’ multiple day timeline. Bottling so much drama into a short time span is a reason for my bias towards the first film’s timeline. For me, the first film dealt with an issue that’s a bit more realistic—a girl is moving from one school to another and she wants to tell the boy she has a crush on her feelings. Even so, Last Words is still a good film with moving moments. And the moving moments are not caused by a reiteration of Nagisa’s state of health, but rather her simple interactions with people.

I do like how, just as in Love on Sunday, there is a small cast of characters. It hones in on the story at hand. It makes everything simpler, but that also means that everything that happens has a greater meaning. That’s one of the reasons that I was not a fan of the pointless side story of the teacher in Love on Sunday. In Last Words, the director and the screenwriter did not throw in a superfluous side story.

The ending is near perfect. It could have been a tear-filled cheese-fest, but it avoids this. It’s mellow and simple which makes for an unforgettable ending. There are no tears shed by Nagisa and Satoru at the very end; the tears are left to the audience. The ending makes the audience put together the meaning behind the words. It is a simple puzzle to put together, but the set-up of the ending would be all in vain with a grandiose teary-eyed farewell. Such a melodramatic ending could never accomplish concluding this story without crossing the line into the forgettable endings.

While I would still recommend the Korean film Happiness for those looking for an incurable illness love story, Last Words is still a good film for those looking for a take on this story type. Last Words is much better than its predecessor, and luckily one does not have to watch the first movie to understand the second. Still, combine the strengths of the two movies and romantic movie gold will be born. If the director ever released “Love on Sunday 3: All the Kinks Worked Out”, I’d be seated in the front row.

The Rating: 7

Reviewed by: Genkisakura