The Lightning Tree

Hiroki goes for a more generic genre effort here. I understand he was trying to branch out, something he once explicitly stated in an interview, but where he was usually able to add something unique to each genre he tackled, The Lightning Tree truly is a film that sticks firmly to genre conventions. And that's simply not where his strengths lie.

The Raiou tree is a tree that symbolizes the conquering of adversity. Once hit by lightning, it is once again blooming with cherry blossoms. Under that tree, two young people meet. One is of wealthy descent, and the other is a girl kidnapped at a young age and living a free life in the mountains. They fall in love, but society isn't ready to accept their relationship.

The performances are a little flakey, the narrative gets pretty sentimental and Hiroki doesn't manage to put his stamp on this film. It's still a decent enough genre effort and fans of historic romances will find something to like here, but compared to what I'm used to seeing from Hiroki, this was somewhat of a disappointment.