Sweet Rain: Accuracy of Death Film Review

Here is a job that I would be very bad at. Grim Reaper. The Grim Reapers in this film have to spend time with their assigned target to determine if they should live or die. Proceed or Suspend. I am such a softie that I would likely decide Suspend for everyone but serial killers and MAGAs. And if the serial killers had some beneficial characteristics, I might have to re-think my judgement. In the opening scene a man in a black suit and somber appearance enters a church and sits next to a ten-year old girl. They are at a funeral. The girl turns to him and asks if he is the Grim Reaper. He assents. Why did you take a child? We don't kill anyone. We just decide. The child had fulfilled its purpose. It is time to go. She nods and the mourners part to allow us to see the photo of the dead child. It is the girl. She gets up and the two walk off into the unknown.

This sets up the whimsical sweet and sentimental mood of the film that follows. Part comically absurd, part acceptance of death - we all die the Grim Reaper constantly says - when doesn't really matter. There are three parts to the film - moving chronologically through time but with a connection between all three that you don't realize till the final section. The mood shifts as well from one part to the next with the final one both powerful and ordained. Getting old is slowly organically accepting the idea of death. Reviews have compared this to Meet Joe Black which I have not seen but having read the plot summary, I would say not really. The Grim Reaper is Chiba played by Takeshi Kaneshiro with an unemotional detachment and puzzlement throughout the film. He has a job - proceed or suspend. His companion, a dog, always asks him "proceed?' to which Chiba answers "probably". No information about his origins are ever given. In heaven he simply jumps through a doorway or from a telephone enters into the realm of earth with a judgement to make and a love of music. Much of the humor in the film comes from his inability to understand slang or humanity.

The first person is Kazue (Manami Konishi), a depressed withdrawn office worker who just wanders through her life with no joy. Everyone she has loved has died - parents, step-parents, lover - she is an empty shell and is ready to die and has attempted to kill herself. She flips coins to guide her life. Heads or tails. Chiba worms his way into her life and asks her if she is ready to die. Music enters her life. It is raining.

Next up is a yakuza gangster (Ken Mitsuishi) who believes in the old traditions of honor and loyalty. Another top yakuza murdered his boss and in his world that means he has to get revenge. His only adherent (Takuya Ishida) is a young punk kid who tries to convince him that it is a suicide mission. The kid tells Chiba that his mother deserted him when he was young. Chiba has entered the story as an informer looking like a yakuza as to the whereabouts of the man he wants to kill. But he still hasn't determined - proceed or suspend. A shootout will notify us of which. Or does it? It is raining.

The final story is the one that brings it all home. Lyrical and powerful and straight to the heart. Put up your defenses. He complains to his dog that his next assignment is a 70-year old woman. Why bother? She is a hairdresser in a small isolated home out in the country. He arrives with wild long hair and asks for a haircut. In the chair she asks him if he is the Grim Reaper. I have been expecting you. Though it is not clear if she recognizes him from years before. As she tells him her life story - everyone I loved died - I abandoned my 7-year-old son because I didn't want him to die - my life was miserable and then I became a singer out of nowhere - it becomes obvious to the audience that she is connected to the first two stories but Chiba seems unaware of this till she reminds him. Her robot assistant puts on a song that a young woman decades before had a hit with when she thought her life was pointless (sung by Manami). The hairdresser tells him that you have never lived - how can you understand how precious it is to those of us who have. The elderly woman is played by the great Junko Fuji now credited as Sumiko. She is still wonderful. The sun shines.