Review of I Hate But Love

A beloved talk show host (Yujiro Ishihara) rejects his increasingly fake-seeming life, shirks his busy schedule, and throws away his non-physical relationship with his manager/girlfriend (Ruriko Asaoka) when he decides to bring to fruition the dreams of his newest human interest story, a woman who has promised her pen pal boyfriend, a doctor who lives in a remote area, that she will deliver her old jeep to him. Asaoka is desperate to keep Ishihara's career intact, so she follows him with a bunch of TV cameras in tow, hoping to at least create some reality television from the situation. Ishihara is sick of it all, though, and does his best to escape. What begins as a sort of romantic comedy turns more desperate and crazy as both Ishihara and Asaoka lose grip of their sanity. I found this movie a tad confusing (let's see if anyone reading this can make out the plot from my description), but it held my interest between the fine performances and good filmmaking. The final 20 minutes are very good, and I think a second viewing might convince me that this is a little better than I thought it was.