Japanese critics are calling ¡°The Miracles of the Namiya General Store¡± the ¡°most tear-inducing¡± story ever adapted from a Keigo Higashino novel. The best-selling author has penned such sensations as the thrillers ¡°The Devotion of Suspect X¡± and ¡°Journey Under the Midnight Sun,¡± but ¡°Namiya¡± went a different way and instead demonstrates Higashino¡¯s hidden flair for feel-good stories.
Brought to the screen by Ryuichi Hiroki, a master of the genre, ¡°Namiya¡± comes off like the Japanese version of a Nicholas Sparks vehicle, minus the love story. There¡¯s a relationship at the center, but it isn¡¯t a romantic one: Sixty-nine-year-old veteran Toshiyuki Nishida pairs up with 24-year-old Ryosuke Yamada from idol-pop group Hey! Say! Jump.
Nishida stars as the titular Namiya, who owned and ran a general goods store in 1980, and is beloved by the neighborhood as a dispenser of life advice. People would write letters spilling their hearts out and drop them in his mailbox, and Namiya would duly reply with another letter deposited in a private postbox. These days, he¡¯d be called a life coach and could probably make millions. Back then, he was a nice old guy who just liked to help.
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