I see Japanese cinema declined as hard in the 90s as the Japanese economy did.
This is a stunningly strong concept that I'm surprised hasn't been the material for more films.
A bunch of down-and-outers who have been flushed out of mainstream society for one reason or another have come to drift together into the pool of night school for another shot at education. This is another Magnificent Seven type of movie (or, in this case, Seven Samurai would be more appropriate) where much of the superficial appeal comes from just having a diverse set of interesting identities to observe. This time the team is much better and more realistically composed than Sumo Do, Sumo Don't (1992), where it was a bunch of somewhat offensive comedic archetypes. Here you get the foreigner, the aged day laborer, low IQ guy, street urchins, and even a hikikomori. They're all tied together by the will of their old bachelor teacher.
The teacher is quirky, which is supposed to be charming; and the students have tragic stories and hardships, which is supposed to substitute for meaning. In the last 10 minutes we get a boring and barely sensical philosophical exploration of happiness that falls flat - meant to mimic depth.
It all just seems to be a poorly executed attempt to manufacture something warm and meaningful. Ultimately what it really amounts to is a few brief vignettes about some of the characters and meaningless outings together. It's basically the feeling of leafing through someone else's photo albums, seeing some school pictures, and being told about some of the people in the pictures. A little boring, a little sad, and a great deal of meaningless.
Honourable Mentions: Stand and Deliver (1988). A TV drama and centered around Mexicans, it was never going to be a big hit, yet despite the fact that it's based on a true story, it is deep, honestly emotional, and substantial. A high school teacher in an impoverished school district successfully trains a group of students who are grappling with educational underdevelopment and serious personal problems to pass a relatively advanced high school math exam. The teacher is interesting? Is he a hero? Perhaps, but at least some of his motivation appears to be fueled by selfish sources, such as personal ambition. Possibly the best movie about the bond between a teacher and his students and certainly the most underrated one I know of.
