Japanese filmmaker Kôji Fukada has conceived “a love drama in two parts”, a sentimental chase in episodes.
“Follow me, I’m running away from you”, “Run away from me, I’m following you”, love behaviors sometimes boil down to a race of one after the other, of attraction and rejection games. “Fuis-moi, je te fuis”, “Fuis-moi, je t’su”, these are the French titles chosen for “a love drama in two parts” shot by the Japanese filmmaker Kôji Fukada (“Harmonium”, “L’ nurse “). It was first a ten-episode series, adapted from a manga by Mochiru Hoshisato, “The Real Thing” (“Honki No Shirushi”), finally remade for the cinema in two films that would become one, and released one week after the other in French theaters (May 11 and May 18) after being part of the selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
In the first feature film, “Follow me, I’m running away from you”, we meet Tsuji (Win Morisaki), a handsome young man, a salesman who sells toys and fireworks. In a shed, between two boxes, he exchanges a kiss with a young colleague in love. But if he maintains the flirtation with the girl, Tsuji finds another colleague at home, with whom he lives in secret, a well-kept secret, it is not done in the company.
A “strange charm” and irresistible
One night, he meets a young stranger lost in a night grocery store; when she blocks his car on a level crossing, the brave boy saves his life, an act of bravery for which he is not really rewarded. The beautiful girl disappears. Then reappears asleep on a bench, in the street. This time, Tsuji literally runs after her, and joins the one he calls Ukiyo (Kaho Tsuchimura). From then on, he will constantly fly to her rescue, pay his debts to a yakuza, avoid prostitution, and put himself in impossible situations for this mysterious and dissimulating young woman, who only repeats too often “I’m sorry”. Nothing makes it, he is fascinated in spite of himself by this femme fatale, her “strange charm” and irresistible, desperate creature who disappears without warning.
Same characters in the sequel, “Fuisi moi, je te suis”, where Tsuji shows himself indecisive, ambiguous, with his official girlfriend, and fleeing with the jealous and insistent colleague. Once again, he can’t help but come back to help Ukiyo, can’t get rid of her, and especially can’t get rid of her, in spite of her secrecy, her secrets (she has a husband, a daughter, an in-laws, a former lover), her betrayals.
As if to turn the pages of this sentimental chase, in each episode, we return regularly to his tiny apartment. But it’s his turn to disappear, and Ukiyo’s turn to look for him. Follow me, run away from me, a man thinks he has to save a woman who has to save another man. Koji Fukada stages fragments of the mystery of love, as the loved one becomes elusive, a quest lost in advance. While evoking the constraints of Japanese society (property, human relations…), the filmmaker tells a story of modern romanticism, between destinies, chance and coincidences. Follow me, run away from me, I will always be there for you.
Patrick Tardit
“Follow me, I’m running away from you” (released on May 11) and “Follow me, I’m following you” (released on May 18), two films by Kôji Fukada.
