Dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita. Japan , 2007. 121 min.
Rarely has a title fit so perfectly the picture bearing it. Cute, corny and inoffensive, with just a pinch of salt to suggest the flavour of the old Yamashita, whose reputation lies mostly with tongue-in-cheek deadpan Jarmusch-like satires such as The Ramblers and Linda, Linda, Linda, A Gentle Breeze in the Village is a sunny countryside love story. Taking place in a peaceful little village practically untouched by the digital revolution of the big city, the plot is based on a girl's manga story by Fusako Kuramochi whose sub-adolescent readership will be the first to appreciate the film adaptation. Taking its time, throwing in a diversionary subplot here and there, Yamashita's film is first and foremost destined for matinee screenings on the home market, with very little to attract audiences elsewhere.

From the very beginning, Yamashita adopts an almost fairytale tone. In this small village kids still obediently follow the instructions of their elders and 14 years old girls have never been kissed. Soyo (Kaho) is the oldest of the school's pupils, and is rather lonely since there aren't any other kids her own age in the village. She is the film's hesitant narrator and takes the audience through her last year in elementary school before she is to enter high school in the next town.

Her tale starts when Osawa (Okada), a boy her own age, is brought back to the village by his mother (Okuchi), who was born there, but eloped years ago to get married in the city. As the seasons gently go by, a series of unhurried episodes show Soyo and Osawa tentatively becoming attracted to each other as the other, younger, kids attentively watch them. Soyo's temperamental father intervenes at one point and forbids her to see the son of 'that woman', with whom he had evidently entertained in the past a relationship that has left unhealed scars.

Divisions between the fledgling lovers appear when a short trip to Tokyo indicates how deeply Soyo's soul is imbedded in her native village while an argument about what high school they should attend the next year suggests Osawa is still a city boy at heart.

Yamashita's keen eye wryly observes the growing pains of his young protagonist: her bouts of self recrimination and her pangs of conscience, the yearning and the fear of maturity.

Yamashita does throw in personal touches, such as the look in the eyes of the ogling post office man who rather fancies the girl but would never concede it of his own accord.

However nothing disturbs the peaceful, good natured mood of the piece. There are no hardships, conflicts or matters of serious concern to mar the mod. It makes for a pleasant couple of hours, which a stricter editing process could have considerably reduced without any damage to the whole.

Sympathetically acted, the young leads play with admirable restraint and the smaller children are as cuddly and chubby as the recipe prescribes.

This might almost be a subtle parody of the genre, so pedantically underlined are its characteristics, but if that was the intention, it is so understated that no one will suspect its existence.

Production companies
Asmik Ace Entertainment (Jap)
Picnic, Inc. (Jap)
Shueisha, Inc. (Jap)
Kansai Telecasting Corp. (Jap)
Music On TV Inc. (Jap)
Sumimoto Corp. (Jap)

International sales
Kayo Yoshida (Jap)

Executive producers
Masao Teshina
Shundo Atsu
Noritaka Yamaji
Taizo Tani
Hiroshi Goryo
Seiichi Morimoto

Producers
Shinji Ogawa
Hiiroyuki Negishi

Screenplay
Aya Watanabe, based on manga 'Tennen Kokekko' by Fusako Kuramochi

Cinematography
Ryuto Kondo

Editor
Riuji Miyajima

Production design
Koixhi Kanekatsu

Music
Re Harakami

Main cast
Kaho
Masaki Okada
Erisa Yanagi
Shoko Fujimura
Syougo Morishita
Rui Honma
Saya Miyazawa
Hiromasa Hirosue
Yui Natsukawa
Koichi Sato

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