Chiba (Takeshi), the Shinigami (aka Grim Reaper) with his faithful telepathic canine friend (I want a black lab who can talk to me like that!) are the messengers of death. More like umpires, they are assigned to "subjects" (people who would come face to face with death) for 7 days to decide whether to proceed (die) or to suspend (let live). He travels through time from one assignment to next, ultimately realizing that the subjects were linked in one way or another.
Chiba bases his judgements on his contact with them, what the subject thinks of death and whether his/her purpose has been fulfilled.
A surprisingly lighthearted attempt with some black humour, an child-like Shinigami unfamiliar with terms like "pick up" and "runny nose" adds novelty to an otherwise deep, dark movie that wants to make its audience think about life, death and what is important vs what is special. I like how Chiba has never seen the blue sky because it's always raining when he appears, until one day he finally see a clear sky.
"You don't know life, because you don't see life, you only see death"...
Takeshi's pretty face adds to the typically beautiful Japanese cinematography. It was nice to be able to unds abit of the Jap together with the subtitles... makes me feel like restarting Japanese lessons .
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