Japanese biopics generally don¡¯t travel well: A famous historical figure here is usually only slightly known to international audiences at best. Also, the films¡¯ hagiographic portraits have little appeal to non-Japanese who aren¡¯t already fans.
Izuru Narushima¡¯s ¡°Father of the Milky Way Railroad¡± tries a different, more interesting approach to the life of poet and writer Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), who is beloved in Japan but not as well-known abroad as the Danish author to whom he is often compared, Hans Christian Andersen.
The film traces Miyazawa¡¯s life from his birth in 1896 in Iwate Prefecture to his death from acute pneumonia at age 37 in 1933, but its focus is his father, Masajiro Miyazawa (Koji Yakusho), a well-off pawnbroker in the Iwate city of Hanamaki. Based on a novel by Yoshinobu Kadoi, the film portrays him as a refreshingly atypical Japanese movie dad of his or even the modern era.
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