Following a festival run that included Cannes, Toronto, and New York, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s outstanding Asako I & II hits U.S. shores on May 10. The new film from the director of 2016’s acclaimed epic Happy Hour concerns Asako, a young woman whose first love mysteriously disappears, only to reenter her life in the form of a different, identical-looking man who claims no association. From here, things grow complicated.
With its release comes a trailer set to the alternately uplifting and melancholic sounds of Juliette Armanet’s French pop hit “À la Folie,” here rerecorded in Japanese. Having seen the film, I can vouch for its effect being representative of the whole: mysterious in nature but intuitively understood, distinctly Japanese in form yet wholly accessible, Hamaguchi’s film was a highlight of my 2018 viewing. Our own review out of Cannes was not quite as enthused, but it’s precisely the sort of film to which one’s response is most likely rooted in personal experience — maybe ways of seeing the world. It already feels ripe for rediscovery.
Watch it (and stream the song) below:
One day Asako’s first love suddenly disappears. Two years later, she meets his perfect double. An official selection of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Asako I & II is the newest film from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, the acclaimed director of Happy Hour.
Asako I & II opens on May 10.