Much like author Haruki Murakami—whose short story “Drive My Car” provided the basis for the filmmaker’s other (outstanding) movie being released this year—Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi is clearly a hopeless romantic at heart, making films about people afraid of falling in love, or too ashamed to face its consequences.
Both artists’ works also frequently feature doubles and doppelgangers as symbolic motifs—Hamaguchi’s film “Asako I & II,” broken up into two parts, wherein a woman falls instantly in love with two men who look identical but have radically disparate personalities and demeanors.
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