Heavenly Forest

Heavenly Forest
Heavenly Forest
	Original poster
Directed by	Takehiko Shinjo
Written by	Takuji Ichikawa (novel); Kenji Bando (screenplay)
Produced by	Toshiya Nomura
Starring	Aoi Miyazaki; Hiroshi Tamaki; Meisa Kuroki
Cinematography	Mitsuru Komiyama
Edited by	Yoshifumi Fukazawa
Production; companies	Avex Entertainment; IMJ Entertainment; Toei Company
Distributed by	Toei Company
Release dates	June 3, 2006 (Japan); March 16, 2007 (Taiwan);
Running time	116 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	US$5,751,542

Heavenly Forest (ただ、君を愛してる, Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru, lit: I Love You, Only) is a 2006 Japanese romance and drama film based on the novel Renai Shashin: Mō Hitotsu no Monogatari (恋愛寫眞　もうひとつの物語, Collage of Our Life - Another Story) written by Takuji Ichikawa.^[2]^[3] It was also released as a manga. The film was directed by Takehiko Shinjo, and focuses on the relationship that evolves between a photographer named Makoto, and two of his female university classmates, Shizuru and Miyuki.^[4]

Plot

Makoto, a freshman on his first day at university, meets a cute girl named Shizuru. Makoto is normally shy around people, but is attracted to Shizuru for her childlike appearance and behavior. Shizuru wants to be with Makoto, so she develops an interest in his hobby of photography. The two spend time together taking photos in a nearby forest. However, Makoto soon develops stronger feelings for another student named Miyuki, who is beautiful and more well developed. Shizuru, seeing this, hints to Makoto that she will grow up to be a beautiful woman, and he will be sorry for not picking her. One day, she tells Makoto that she wants to take a photo of them kissing in the forest as a present for her birthday, which they do.

After this, Shizuru unexpectedly leaves school and is not heard from again for two years. Makoto receives a letter asking him to come to New York to see Shizuru's debut photography exhibit. By then Makoto has broken up with Miyuki because he has decided he really loves Shizuru, and will wait for her to return. When he arrives in New York, he is greeted by Miyuki, and finds out that Shizuru was hiding a disease from him, and has died. Apparently when she fell in love with Makoto, and started eating more to "grow up" for him, she accelerated her disease. He goes to the exhibit and sees many photos of himself, and a huge photo of Shizuru all grown up and beautiful, as she had foretold. There is also the photo of the two of them kissing in the forest, with a caption saying that this was her one true love.

Cast

Aoi Miyazaki as Shizuru Satonaka
Hiroshi Tamaki as Makoto Segawa
Meisa Kuroki as Miyuki Toyama
Misa Uehara as Saki Inoue
Munetaka Aoki as Ryo Shirohama
Keisuke Koide as Kyohei Sekiguchi
Asae Ōnishi as Yuka Yaguchi

Soundtrack

The film's theme song, "Ren'ai Shashin" (Love Photo), is a ballad sung by Ai Otsuka. The title of the movie was taken from the lyrics of the song.^{[citation needed]} The single was released by Ai Otsuka on October 25, 2006. In its first week of sales, the single debuted at number 2, being Otsuka's highest debut sales of the year with 77,570 copies sold. The song also won the "Best Video From A Film" and "Best Pop Video" awards at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan 2007.

Reception

Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru earned US$5,311,676 at the Japanese box office.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b "Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
^ ただ、君を愛してる(2006) [Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru (2006)]. AllCinema Movie & DVD Database (in Japanese). Japan: Stingray. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
^ "Profile of Takuji Ichikawa". Red Circle Authors. 23 September 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
^ "Tada, Kimi Wo Aishiteru". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2008. Archived from the original on 9 January 2008. Retrieved 12 October 2011.

External links

Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru official website at the Wayback Machine (archived March 10, 2009)
Heavenly Forest at IMDb
Heavenly Forest at Rotten Tomatoes
Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru at the Japanese Film Database

[boxofficemojo-1] "Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2013-06-10.

[allcinema-2] ただ、君を愛してる(2006) [Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru (2006)]. AllCinema Movie & DVD Database (in Japanese). Japan: Stingray. Retrieved 12 October 2011.

[3] "Profile of Takuji Ichikawa". Red Circle Authors. 23 September 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2019.

[nytimes-4] "Tada, Kimi Wo Aishiteru". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2008. Archived from the original on 9 January 2008. Retrieved 12 October 2011.

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