Just a tinkle on the keys to heaven

Tengoku no Honya - koibi

Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Director: Tetsuo Shinohara
Running time: 111 minutes
Language: Japanese
Opens June 5

Ever since "Ghost" -- that 1990 Jerry Zucker weeper better known now as the sexiest ceramics-instructional film ever -- Japanese filmmakers have returned repeatedly to the theme of Love Beyond the Grave, while trying ever harder to come up with new twists.

The latest to mine this vein (or rather, mile-wide pit) is Tetsuo Shinohara ("Shinkokyu no Hitsuyo"), with "Tengoku no Honya -- Koibi (Heaven's Bookstore -- The Light of Love)." Based on a best-selling novel by Hisaatsu Matsu and Wataru Tanaka, the film presents a cosmology that is part Buddhism, part schoolgirl wish fulfillment and part theme park, while striving more for sighs of awe and delight than Zuckerian tears. Also, instead of hot clinches, it settles for soulful speeches and noodling on the keyboard (with tunes supplied by pop power couple Masataka and Yumi Matsutoya).

Shinohara doesn't condescend to this material. If anything, he overelevates it, striving to make turbulent drama out of clever reworkings of formula. But he also knows what his audience wants -- and mostly delivers.