Masked Hearts won me over by being quirkily revelatory (Film review)

  

 I viewed four of this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival

offerings at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre :) 

 

Masked Hearts (Japan, 2023)

- Yuya Ishii, director and writer

- Starring: Mayu Matsuoka, Masataka Kubota, Koichi Sato 

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Fantastic Beats program 

The second Japanese film I viewed at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival differs in so many ways from the first. For starters, whereas Takeshi Kitano's Kubi is set in the past, focuses on middle-aged (or even older) men (specifically warring, plotting samurai lords) and has a lot of extreme violence, Yuya Ishii's Masked Hearts is set in the present day, has a young adult female protagonist and doesn't boast much violence (especially on screen!).  

 

Something else I got to thinking when viewing this comedy-drama -- that began as the story of a young female filmmaker in Tokyo confronted with sexism and ageism but then switches to becoming a work about her and her dysfunctional family after she decides to return home to make a movie with her father and two brothers -- is that, whereas Kubi is the sort of Japanese film that would get screened at Asian film festivals in the West, Masked Hearts isn't.  But/and is the kind of movie that Hong Kong audiences, both at film fests and in cineplexes, eat up.      

Having just viewed Norris Wong's The Lyricist Wannabe (Hong Kong-Taiwan, 2024), I saw parallels early on between the young Hong Kong woman aspiring to break into the music industry and Masked Hearts' Hanako (played by Mayu Matsuoka).  Specifically, both of the films' protagonists are romantics doggedly pursuing their dreams -- that, if they were Hollywood movies, would have a predictable trajectory.  But since they aren't, their narratives actually end up having quirky elements and interesting twists.

 

Among those quirky elements is the romantic interest added to Masked Hearts by way of the kind-hearted Masao (essayed by Masataka Kubota) -- who works in a slaughter house, and has a fondness for the ridiculously small "AbeMasks" handed out to Japanese households early on in the pandemic -- entering Hanako's life. More supportive than conventionally romantic, he goes with Hanako when she returns to the family home where her father, Osamu (portrayed by Koichi Sato), now lives alone.

 

A man of few words, Osamu turns out to be a man of many secrets.  And someone who loves his children -- elder businessman son Seiichi (played by Sosuke Ikematsu) and younger Catholic clergyman son Yuji (Ryuya Wakaba) as well as Hanako -- very much.  Suffice to say that all this gets revealed in the final third section of this ultimately pretty satisfying movie.  

 

Granted that it's not perfect and doesn't reach the heights of The Great Passage, the movie that Yuya Ishii's most well known for.  But the fact of the matter is that this (re)viewer still did come out of the fest screening of Masked Hearts -- held over at the Hong Kong Culture Centre's magnificent +1,700 capacity Grand Theatre -- with a smile and positive feeling that, even in a world where tragedy does occur, there still is much that's good in it, including people who may outwardly seem flawed but actually turn out to have quite a bit (of love and care) to give. :)

 

My rating for this film: 7.0.