Just like Clint Eastwood, who is still making films at 93, 92-year-old Japanese filmmaker Yoji Yamada (山田洋次) is also proving that age is just a number. The man who brought the world the beloved TORA-SAN series has recently released his 90th work, MOM, IS THAT YOU?! It’s the third film in his “Mother” series that includes KABEI: OUR MOTHER (母べえ) from 2008 and NAGASAKI: MEMORIES OF MY SON (母と暮せば) from 2015.

Akio Kanzaki’s (Yo Oizumi/大泉洋, PHASES OF THE MOON) life is a bit of a mess. The HR manager at a large corporation has to lay off some staff including one of his oldest friends, he and his wife are headed for divorce, and his college-student daughter finds her studies boring and doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. To get a bit of a respite from all the chaos swirling around him, Akio decides to visit his widowed mother, Fukue (Sayuri Yoshinaga/吉永小百合, NAGASAKI: MEMORIES OF MY SON; SAKURA GUARDIAN IN THE NORTH). When he gets there, he’s surprised to see that her hair is styled, she’s dressed nicely, she’s busy helping out the homeless in Tokyo and she has a boyfriend of sorts. It’s all a bit much for the embattled salaryman.

Let it not be said that Yamada’s films aren’t scmaltzy but MOM, IS THAT YOU?! may just be the least schmaltzy in recent memory. Oh sure, there are the obligatory man-tears that come with every Japanese sentimental movie and there’s some unnecessary yelling when quiet words said in anger would do just fine, but overall this is a reasonably realistic portrait of an adult coming to the realisation that his mother is also a woman who has her own needs. That being said, I don’t think the film goes far enough along that tack and the story gets muddled up by spending far too much time dealing with Akio’s friend who is getting fired. To me, that’s a whole other movie script right there.

I was reading a well-known advice columnist yesterday and she was responding to a reader who wrote in asking for help on how to tell his adult children that he is in a relationship. This is a real thing these days as being a senior citizen today doesn’t mean you have to sit home all alone hopimg for the phone to ring. I remember about 35 years ago my parents split up for a few days. I told both of them that if divorce is the answer, then do it and be happy. Life is too short, I said, to be miserable. I think they wanted me to take sides in their dispute, which I definitely was not going to do. In the end, they reconciled and stayed together for 72 years. Were all of them happy years? Probably not but the alternative seemed less savoury to them. I always thought, though, that if one or both of them would end up alone, I would want them to find someone new and live again. This is the issue that Akio comes to terms with here. Fukue finding happiness with another man doesn’t mean she loved Akio’s late father any less. As she shows with her acts of kindness, she has plenty of room in her heart for both of them.

MOM, IS THAT YOU?! opens in Hong Kong today (October 12th). It’s okay but I suppose for Yoji Yamada fans, it’s a must-see.

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