Living a Million Yen Life ("One Million Yen Girl" film review)

            In life, you need to have a priority. It’s either you choose one over another, or not to choose anything at all and live a chaotic life. This principle was present in “One Million Yen Girl” in the life of the main character, Suzuko Sato.

            Suzuko is an ex-convict charged by a criminal offense. She felt ashamed to stay home so she decided to leave and worked in towns where nobody knew her. Everytime she saved up one million yen, she transferred to another town. She had odd jobs. She sold shaved ice near the beach, became a “peach girl, and worked at a flower shop. She touched lives and had her life touched by a love she found in the person of Ryohei Nakajima.

            When I heard the film’s title, “One Million Yen Girl,” I thought the film would be of a romantic-comedy type. But it defied my expectations. It was not as hilarious as I thought it would be. It was actually a more serious one.

            The movie was not-your-typical love story where one always ends up with the other. Unlike others, they did not have a happy ending. In fact, their misunderstanding was still not settled even at the end of the movie. Maybe the writer and the director’s point of doing this was to emphasize that Suzuko really chose something between the two important things in her life.

            The ending clearly states that the film did not really focus on the romance between Suzuko and Ryohei. Its center was more about setting priorities in life. Suzuko was made to choose between the one million yen she was saving up and the person she loved. And it was clear that she prioritized the former when she chose to leave the guy behind.

            Suzuko is just like most of us. Instead of facing our fears, we run away from them. We find ways to take them out of our lives. But what we don’t know is that these fears are just resting in a corner, ready to haunt us anytime. We have to understand that we only overcome fears by facing them.

           

            For me, the director’s style was not so effective. He made unexpected scenes that made the story dull. This could be perceived in the end part of the story where Ryohei tried to catch up with Suzuko when she was leaving for another town. But the film ended suddenly leaving the audience puzzled about what might happen next. It was not really a good ending to a story. Well, it’s okay to keep the audience guessing, but does it have to be that way?

            As a whole, the film is just acceptable. Although the ending was not that good, “One Million Yen Girl” had an excellent storyline. Also, I did not appreciate the movie that much because there was scarcity of music which made some parts appear boring.