I could say I'm quite of depth with older Japanese movies. In fact, if not for an extensive back-dating of major Japanese movie releases I may not even know that this movie existed. However, how I encounter Sand's Chronicle wasn't through my back-dating of major releases. Instead, it was through the movie's theme song "Kaeritaku Natta yo" by Ikimonogakari that this movie caught my eye. There were scenes from the movie in the PV for this song that I thought was familiar and that piqued my interest in watching this movie.
Sand's Chronicle tells about a story of a girl called Minase Ann (Matsushita Nao/ Kaho) who couldn't get away from the shadows of her mother's death. When Ann was young, she followed her mother to the countryside to stay with her grandmother after her mother was divorced. She was touched by the villagers' kindness and espcially the companionship of Daigo (Shunya Isaka/Sosuke Ikematsu). However, her mother was too overwhelmed by the divorce that she killed herself in the hills one night. Ann saw her mother leave the house and even told her mother that she will follow to wherever she was going at that moment but was powerless to do so. This incident became a scar and hampered her whenever happiness seems to arrive. However, Daigo is determined to pull her away from the past and to pull her closer to him where he could guarantee her happiness.
Sand's Chronicle's pace isn't fast, but then again you wouldn't notice that time flies by real quickly as you watch the movie. The movie format is similar to another movie "Crying out Love, in the Centre of the World" where they intersect the past and the present regularly to tell the story. Another similarity between the two movies is they both have pretty good young actors to helm the show. "Crying out Love" had Nagesawa Masami and Moriyama Mirai, while "Sand's Chronicle" has Kaho and Sosuke Ikematsu. In fact, I found Kaho very familiar when I started to watch Sand's Chronicle. I only realised she is the girl with the one in Otomen. However, I felt her acting in Sand's Chronicle is much more natural, and she has less baby fat on her cheeks, making her prettier. If you find Sosuke Ikematsu familiar, he appeaered in the movie "Dive!" as well.
Overall, the movie is well written but of course compared to "Crying out Love", "Sand's Chronicle" has some way to go. Nonetheless, it is still an enjoyable love story and I definitely need to introduce the theme song for this movie, which really is a great song from Ikimonogakari.
Credits: port87.blogspot.com
