Directors steal from each other constantly — sometimes out of love, sometimes envy, sometimes a tangle of motives. The results range from Brian De Palma's famed "Odessa Steps" sequence in "The Untouchables," which thrillingly referenced the Sergei Eisenstein silent classic "The Battleship Potemkin," to Gus Van Sant's dull shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."
What then to make of Norihiro Koizumi's "Flowers," which recreates the look of everything from the 1930s black-and-white dramas of Yasujiro Ozu to 1960s Toho Technicolor comedies? Neither slavish imitation nor inventive recreation, the film is more about its faux authentic look and feel-good story lines than actual drama.
In previous films "Taiyo no Uta" ("Song of the Sun," 2006) and "Gachi Boy" (2008), whose protagonists suffered from rare medical conditions, Koizumi proved he could connect emotionally with audiences minus the usual tearjerking. "Taiyo no Uta" was a commercial hit in Japan, while "Gachi Boy" became an unlikely festival favorite, winning the Audience Award at the 2008 Udine Far East Film Festival.