HACHIKO

A Dogs Story
By Sutatik
Directed by
Written by
Actors
Genre
Year

: Lasse Hallstrom
: Stephen Lindsey
: Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Sarah Roemer, Jason Alexandra
: Drama
:2008

"Hachiko: A Dog's Story" wants to show us a breathtaking, true story about

love, loyalty, friendship and longing. A real story took place in Japan, but in
Hallstrm's movie, the dog's still Japanese.
It was a typical day for Professor Wilson (Richard Gere). He was coming
back from his work when he finds a little puppy on the train station. Professor
takes the dog home, though his wife (Joan Allen) was protesting. From this
moment we can watch groving, day by day, feeling beetwen Hachi and Professor
Wilson. Feeling so true that even Gere's wife stopped searching for dog's owner.
Hachi, so grateful to its master, escorted him to the local train station when he
goes to his work. And when Professor comes back Hachi always sat there and
waiting.
Everything changed when, one day, Professor didn't appear on the train station.
Hachi waits for hours, until the professors daughter comes to take it home.
Every day for ten long years, Hachi returns to the station in anticipation of
its masters arrival at the train station. Vendors and employees at the terminal
feed Hachi, but the dog never accepts another master. Hachi finally dies at the
terminal, still waiting for his beloved master.
The film is cute and funny at times as expected when you have such a
lovable animal as a main character in a film. It was also a nice touch to switch to
dog vision from time to time so that we can see how the world looks like from
Hachis eyes.
The music for this film by Jan A. P. Kaczmarek has such a great feel to it
and its always timed perfectly. Its probably the only notable thing in this film
other than the core story and the performances of the dogs. Everything else falls
pretty flat and that includes most of the emotional scenes.
Im not complaining that the film feels too grounded, I can actually
appreciate the fact that it doesnt sensationalize the story but they couldve
added a few more interesting things to the story that would still make it feel real.

This was kind of a hard script to get perfectly right. The main focus of the
story had to be on prof and Hachi. so extraneous stuff with other characters had
to be introduced.
Despite some problems with the script, I thought Hachiko: A Dogs Story
was a very good film on the whole. If you feel like having a nice, cathartic cry,
then this is definitely something you should watch. I imagine that only an
avowed cynic with a heart of stone wouldnt be touched by the story of Hachis
devotion.