A dramatic device that I have become less patient with as it is more frequently wielded is the final-act plot twist, which often feels like an end in itself. In the case of Kei Ishikawa’s adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel, A Pale View of Hills, the big reveal near the end probably wasn’t intended as a plot twist but rather was necessitated by the demands of adaptation. Though I haven’t read the book, my understanding is that the structure, especially with regards to POV, is purposely vague so as to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions about where the story is going and what it actually means. Such a mechanism is common in literature, which honors ambiguity, while cinema tends to be more literal, thus forcing Ishikawa to go through all sorts of contortions to make the same impression and, of course, in the end he doesn’t.

The framing story takes place in the early 80s in London as Etsuko (Yoh Yoshida), a woman who moved to the UK from Nagasaki in the 50s with her daughter Keiko when she married a British man, prepares to move house. Etsuko’s second daughter, Niki (Camilla Aiko), is helping her tidy up her possessions and certain items prompt her to ask Etsuko about her past, thus conjuring up an extended flashback about Etsuko’s (Suzu Hirose) first marriage to Keiko’s father and her friendship with a woman, Sachiko (Fumi Nikaido), a single mother bent on accompanying a G.I. to the U.S. Sachiko strikes her neighbors and acquaintances as antisocial, a label she wears with a certain amount of perverse pride. As it turns out, Etsuko herself is also treated as something of a pariah because she is a survivor of the atomic bombing, and the two women’s stories intertwine in various thematic ways.

Ishikawa does fairly well describing the period milieu and the cultural atmosphere that created it, especially when it comes to the postwar mood of a citizenry that felt betrayed by its leaders. He’s less capable with the interpersonal relationships and their tragic outcome, which feel schematic and over-determined. Obviously, some source material is harder to interpret than others, no matter how dramatically irresistible it appears on the surface. 

The final act plot twist in the Korean weepie While You Were Sleeping—not to be confused with the Sandra Bullock vehicle or, for that matter, the 2017 Korean TV drama, both of which were nominally comedies—is more conventional than the one in Pale Hills and in that regard more successful, but the movie is such a bummer that you may not care. As in the Bullock movie, the main female character, Deok-hee (Choo Ja-hyun), ends up in a coma after an accident that also kills one of her twin children. After she awakes with amnesia her husband, Joon-seok (Lee Mu-saeng), a novelist, attempts to help her regain her memory. So far, so conventional, but the director, Jang Yoon-hyeon, covers it all with a scrim of disorientation that makes you wonder who is really suffering from brain fog. 

As Deok-hee’s memory gradually returns we learn, in flashback, how her relationship with Joon-seok developed and that he is trying to write it all down in an erratic flurry of desperation. By the time the reasons for his behavior become clear there are more questions that aren’t being answered. We find out everything when Deok-hee does, but the revelation does not bring closure. On the contrary, it just makes the misery more miserable. If you love to have your sympathies completely manipulated, this is the movie for you. 

A Pale View of Hills, in Japanese and English, now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Hibiya, Toho Cinemas Shinjuku, Shinjuku Piccadilly, Shinjuku Wald 9, 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku, Toho Cinemas Shibuya, Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi, Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills.

While You Were Sleeping, in Korean, now playing in Tokyo at Cinemart Shinjuku (03-5369-2831). 

A Pale View of Hills home page in Japanese

While You Were Sleeping home page in Japanese

A Pale View of Hills photo (c) 2025 A Pale View of Hills Film Partners

While You Were Sleeping photo (c) 2024 Studio Killerwhale & Logline Studio