Kenji (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Jane (Gwei Lun-Mei) live in a New York City borough with their son Kai (Everest Talde). Kenji and Jane are on the precipice of physical and mental collapse. Kenji is desperate to receive tenure as a professor of architecture specializing in ruins. Jane is a director of a puppet theatre and works when she can at her parent’s convenience store. Her father is in dire need of personal care and to top it all off her mother plies Kai with too many sweets. Finances are tight. Their station wagon is on its last screech and whine. Their relationship is strained at the edge of collapse. Ironical that Kenji, a student of architectural ruin is surrounded by emotional and the physical ruin of New York highlighted throughout the film.
Director Tetsuya Mariko throws tidbits of hints throughout. While grocery shopping with Kai Jane is being observed from the outside and an angry masked man spray paints her car with “BLANK”. Kenji takes the car into Miguel’s body shop for an assessment but an angry assistant nearly bowls over Kenji and in an ominous moment steals a pistol from the car which Jane’s grandfather had given her parents to protect the convenience store. You simply are certain that pistol will reappear! Then the convenience store Jane works at is robbed while Jane and Kai are there. A review of the CCR camera footage of the robbery by Kenji incites his anger. He recognizes one of the thieves! Clearly someone is out for revenge or retribution.
Kenji takes Kai to an architectural exhibit and while networking for a moment Kai disappears. The plot thickens. Detective Bixby (Christopher Mann) of the NYPD states to Jane and Kenji kidnappings of children are most often by someone close to the family.
The viewer is taken to yet another ruined building, a school, where the kidnapping and rationale unfold. A hint early on in the movie is an important one when Kenji asks Jane if she is still seeing “him”.
A very well told and captivating tale about what the ruin of people may lead to and the bizarre causality of suicide where the innocent by strict logic are the perpetuators and judge themselves as guilty of murder. As Jane is a puppeteer the film could be making a point most of humanity is manipulated by forces outside their control.
In a near closing scene Kenji addresses an audience discussing his book on architectural ruin by stating we must learn from ruins and not walk away. As Kenji sizes up the personal ruins around him and is on the road of learning from them an impactful moment that may send you spilling out of your chair as it did to me imposes a strange twist to the film filling it with false logic that in the most abstract manner is not so false.
“Dear Stranger”, a Japanese/American/Taiwanese co-production will be having its International Premiere at the upcoming Busan International Film Festival.
RKS 2025 Film Rating 86/100.
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