Crying Out Love in the Center of the World

Crying Out Love in the Center of the World (2004) is a Japanese melodrama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Isao Yukisada adapted Kyoichi Katayama's bestselling novel — more than three million copies sold in Japan — into a 138-minute film that moves between a man's present and a high-school past too painful to leave behind.

Sakutaro is in his early thirties and about to get married when his fiancée Ritsuko vanishes after finding a mysterious cassette. He tracks her to his hometown and, travelling back, sinks into memories seventeen years old: a first love, a girl named Aki, and what happened to her. Takao Osawa plays the adult Sakutaro; Ko Shibasaki and Masami Nagasawa carry the flashback storyline.

Yukisada gives grief a long runway. At nearly two and a half hours the film earns its emotional weight rather than hurrying toward it — that patience is what separates it from ordinary tearjerkers. Stream Crying Out Love in the Center of the World (2004) online on iFILM.