The Real Thing

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2:04

The Real Thing

2021

3h 52m

Drama

Romance

Mystery & Thriller

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

63%

Tomatometer

8 Reviews

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

After a floundering toy salesman rescues a beguiling woman whose car was stuck on the train tracks, she inadvertently whisks him into an epic series of misadventures that turn his life upside down. While his once humdrum routine was already complicated by two female co-workers, he soon finds himself entrenched with gangsters, strange interlopers, kidnapping and other sundry crimes and misdemeanors. Singular auteur Koji Fukada (A Girl Missing) marks his first time adapting someone else's work to the screen by bringing this popular manga to life replete with his patently idiosyncratic and lively take on human nature, fatalism, and true love.

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David Ehrlich

IndieWire

06/05/2021

B-

The journey these characters take on their way to stop lying to themselves is worth your time, but when they finally arrive, it's hard not to think there wasn't a faster or more honest way there.

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Simon Abrams

RogerEbert.com

06/04/2021

1/4

There are a lot of fragmentary ideas in The Real Thing, but they're not cohesive or worthwhile as they're loosely formed into one grey 232-minute lump.

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Chuck Bowen

Slant Magazine

05/30/2021

3/4

The film reveals Kôji Fukada to be playing a patient, very resonant long game, underscoring the struggle to wrest oneself out of social vices.

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Kathy Fennessy

Video Librarian Magazine

10/25/2021

3/4

At the very least, the actors make their irresistible attraction to each other unsettlingly believable.

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Glenn Heath Jr.

The Film Stage

06/14/2021

A

Some of the eccentric charm that made it such a masterpiece of the serial format has vanished. Strangely, though, watching this maddening tale of love found, lost, and found in one fell swoop makes for a more sobering and heartbreaking experience.

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Filipe Freitas

Always Good Movies

06/13/2021

2/5

This prosaic Japanese rom-com... is a four-hour soap opera that, in the end, showed to have more limitations than qualities.

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Koji Fukada

Director

Win Morisaki

Tsuji Kazumichi

Kaho Tsuchimura

Hayama Ukiyo

Shôhei Uno

Hayama Tadashi

Kei Ishibashi

Hosokawa Naoko

Akari Fukunaga

Fujitani Minako

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Synopsis

After a floundering toy salesman rescues a beguiling woman whose car was stuck on the train tracks, she inadvertently whisks him into an epic series of misadventures that turn his life upside down. While his once humdrum routine was already complicated by two female co-workers, he soon finds himself entrenched with gangsters, strange interlopers, kidnapping and other sundry crimes and misdemeanors. Singular auteur Koji Fukada (A Girl Missing) marks his first time adapting someone else's work to the screen by bringing this popular manga to life replete with his patently idiosyncratic and lively take on human nature, fatalism, and true love.

Director: Koji Fukada
Producer: Yu Katoh, Yoko Abe, Kota Takahashi, Tatsuya Matsuoka
Screenwriter: Koji Fukada
Distributor: Film Movement
Production Co: Nagoya Broadcasting Network (NBN)
Genre: Drama, Romance, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: Japanese
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 4, 2021, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jun 4, 2021
Runtime: 3h 52m

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