Better Than Average Bear
An interesting reversal of the dying YA character narrative. It sometimes leans to the saccharine, but ultimately sees the best in people against some significant odds.
How much is a life worth? According to Moon Sung-Ho’s debut feature 5 MILLION DOLLAR LIFE (五億円のじんせい), it costs just over $2 million to sustain a life from birth to death. What if some people have helped save yours? Do you owe them an additional debt?
This is the quandary facing Mirai (Ayumu Mochizuki), who suffered a life-threatening illness as a child that he survived thanks to the townsfolk pulling together and paying for his surgery and treatment. Now a minor local celebrity on the cusp of adulthood, he’s lived with the pressures of being worthy of that save his whole life. So, he decides to end it all.
After posting his thoughts online, Mirai begins to receive a series of messages telling him that if he’s going to kill himself, he should probably pay back the estimated 500 million yen (a little less than $5 million dollars) to the good people first. So Mirai sets out on a ‘trip’ to earn money in a variety of ways.
There’s a frustrating naivety to Mirai’s view of the world, which probably isn’t that unusual for someone whose name translates to “future.” After calculating how much he will need to pay back his “debt” over 171 years, he works as a labourer, a male host called a TT Bear, and as a cleaner. The men that he meets initially treat him with contempt or indifference, yet each move towards helping him in one way or another. One of the adults that he encounters along the way observes that there are “people worth being nice to and those not…You’re the type that survives on kindness.”
Which is kind of where Moon’s film settles. Life is not so much about a dollar value as it is about the connections that we make along the way. After all, a life’s worth all depends on how you measure it. One of those connections seems obvious when it is revealed at the end of the film, and the monetary side wraps up a little too conveniently as well. Yet this is ultimately a film that has its heart in the right place, offering a glimmer of hope for the anybody who doesn’t feel that they are quite where they should be.
2019 | Japan | DIR: Moon Sung-Ho | WRITER: Naomi Hiruta| CAST: Ayumu Mochizuki,Anna Yamada,Ryu Morioka,Satoru Matsuo | DISTRIBUTOR: New Cinema Project (JPN), New York Asian Film Festival (US) | RUNNING TIME: 104 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 28 June 2019 (NYAFF), 20 July 2019 (JPN)
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- Lifeline on 13 11 14
- Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800
- MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
- Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
- Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36
- Headspace on 1800 650 890
- QLife on 1800 184 527
- Crisis Text Connect (US)
