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is a 2015 Japanese
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
directed by
Naomi Kawase is a Japanese film director. She was also known as , with her former husband's surname. Many of her works have been documentaries, including ''Embracing'', about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and ''Katatsumori'', about ...
. It is the second film, after I Wish, to star real-life grandmother and granddaughter
Kirin Kiki (15 January 1943 – 15 September 2018) was a Japanese actress for Japanese cinema and television. Biography Kiki was born on January 15, 1943, in Kanda, Tokyo. Her father was a master of the ''biwa'' lute and a former police officer. Her moth ...
and Kyara Uchida. The film was selected to open the
Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...
section at the
2015 Cannes Film Festival The 68th Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 to 24 May 2015. Joel and Ethan Coen were the Presidents of the Jury for the main competition. It was the first time that two people chaired the jury. Since the Coen brothers each received a separate ...
. It was also selected to be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the
2015 Toronto International Film Festival The 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 10 to 20 September 2015. On 28 July 2015 the first wave of films to be screened at the Festival was announced. Jean-Marc Vallée's '' Demolition'' starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Na ...
.


Plot

Sentaro is a middle-aged man who runs a small
dorayaki is a type of Japanese confection. It consists of two small pancake-like patties made from castella wrapped around a filling of sweet azuki bean paste. The original dorayaki consisted of only one layer. Its current shape was invented in 1914 ...
shop in the outskirts of
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
. The shop is frequented by locals and secondary-school pupils alike. When he puts up a notice saying that he is looking for a co-worker, he is approached by Tokue, a lady in her mid-seventies, who states that she has always wanted to work in a dorayaki shop. Sentaro initially rejects her application, afraid that the work would prove too much for the old lady who, moreover, has somewhat deformed hands. However, he is swayed when he tries Tokue's bean paste; its taste and texture are far superior to that of the factory-made bean paste Sentaro has been using. Sentaro asks Tokue to start making bean paste with him, revealing that up until now, he did not actually like his own product. Business begins to thrive, and very soon Tokue also starts serving customers and packaging dorayaki. However, when customers realize that the deformities to Tokue's hand were caused by
leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...
, they stop coming, and Sentaro is forced to let her go. Wakana, a school girl whom Sentaro has befriended, eventually suggests that they go and visit Tokue at the sanatorium where she and other patients were forced to stay until the 1996 repeal of the 1953 Leprosy Prevention Law. Sentaro feels guilty that he was not able to protect Tokue against the prejudice of their customers, but she assures him that she is grateful for the time she was allowed to spend at the shop. When Tokue dies of
pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
a few months later, she leaves Sentaro her own bean paste making equipment, as well as a cassette recording intended for him and Wakana. In it, Tokue stresses that a person's worth lies not in their career, but simply in their being, and also that joy comes from taking in the sensory experiences of the world that surrounds us. Through most of the film, Sentaro had been a man weighed down by his past. When Tokue no longer works for the shop, he sends her a letter, in which he reveals that he once seriously injured a man in a pub brawl, something he is still ashamed of. He was subsequently imprisoned and was ordered to pay a large reparation to the victim. Physically, Sentaro is tied to the dorayaki shop, which is owned by the loan shark that furnished the money for the reparation—money which Sentaro has not yet been able to pay back. Yet at the end of the film, Sentaro is seen selling dorayaki from his own stall in the local park, and it is clear he has learned to live with his circumstances.


Cast

*
Kirin Kiki (15 January 1943 – 15 September 2018) was a Japanese actress for Japanese cinema and television. Biography Kiki was born on January 15, 1943, in Kanda, Tokyo. Her father was a master of the ''biwa'' lute and a former police officer. Her moth ...
as Tokue *
Masatoshi Nagase is a Japanese actor. He is best known in the West for his roles in Friðrik Þór Friðriksson's ''Cold Fever'' and Jim Jarmusch's ''Mystery Train''. Nagase was described by Todd Brown of Twitch Film as "one of the great unsung heroes of Japane ...
as Sentaro * Kyara Uchida as Wakana * Etsuko Ichihara * Miyoko Asada as the shop owner's wife *
Miki Mizuno is a Japanese actress. She played the role of villain in the horror film '' Carved'' as the Kuchisake-Onna a malevolent vengeful spirit who killed many children. Career Mizuno starred in Takanori Tsujimoto's action films ''Hard Revenge Milly'' ...


Title

For its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the film was promoted under the title ''Sweet Red Bean Paste''. At other festivals — and for the Australian release — the original Japanese title ''An'' was used. The subsequent international theatrical release title for the film became ''Sweet Bean''. The English translation of the novel on which the film is based is titled ''Sweet Bean Paste'' (Oneworld Publications 2017, written by Durian Sukegawa, translated by Alison Watts).


Themes

The film centres primarily around the themes of freedom and joy, suggesting that by embracing our sensory experiences we may attain richer, more rewarding lives. As Deborah Young writes, "The undercurrent that runs through the film is a message to learn from nature and enjoy the wonder of life moment by moment, no matter what hard knocks you're dealt". This aspect of the film ties in with the director's earlier work, "A consistent underlying concern of
hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
has been the unspoken bond between man and his environment".


Reception

The film has grossed in Japan. The film received generally positive notices, with a 60 out of 100 rating from
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
across 16 reviews and a score of 88% "Fresh" rating at
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
across 41 reviews. The film was a "Critic's Pick" by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', with the ''Times
Glenn Kenny Glenn Kenny (born August 8, 1959) is an American film critic and journalist. He writes for ''The New York Times'' and '' RogerEbert.com''. Biography Kenny attended William Paterson University, where he majored in English literature.The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''‘s film critic
Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
scored the film at 2 out of 5 stars, writing that "Despite some touching moments, and earnest performances, I must confess to feeling exasperated by the sentimentality and stereotype being served up". The film earned actress
Kirin Kiki (15 January 1943 – 15 September 2018) was a Japanese actress for Japanese cinema and television. Biography Kiki was born on January 15, 1943, in Kanda, Tokyo. Her father was a master of the ''biwa'' lute and a former police officer. Her moth ...
the Best Performance by an Actress award at the 2015
Asia Pacific Screen Awards The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) is an international cultural initiative overseen by the Asia Pacific Screen Academy and headquartered in Australia. In order to realise UNESCO's goals of promoting and preserving the different cultures th ...
.


References


External links

* *
Synopsis, statement, interview with Kawase
an

in:
Festival de Cannes The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
, 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sweet Bean 2015 films 2015 drama films Japanese drama films 2010s Japanese-language films Films directed by Naomi Kawase 2010s Japanese films