Tengoku no honya – koibi (2004)

Tengoku no honya – koibi: Directed by Tetsuo Shinohara. With Yûko Takeuchi, Tetsuji Tamayama, Karina, Hirofumi Arai. KENTA (Tetsuji Tamayama), a young pianist who has just lost his job, is drowning his woes at a bar, when he meets a man in a Hawaiian shirt named YAMAKI (Yoshio Harada). He invites Kenta to work with him, and the next thing he knows, Kenta wakes up to find himself in a room he has never been in before. It is a strange room that seems to have no connection to life. He descends a staircase to find many shelves of books. Yamaki appears once again, and tells him that this is Heaven’s Book Service and Kenta is going to start working a short-term part-time job here. In addition to selling books, this bookstore, owned by Yamaki, provides a service of reading aloud to customers. Although he is unsure of his new surroundings, Kenta follows their actions and starts to work in his new part-time job.

“Kenta (TAMAYAMA Tetsuji), a just fired pianist, finds himself at a bookstore in Heaven after he was dead drunk out of desperation in a tavern last night.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHeu0026#39;s not dead. The bookstore has hired him for a short-term job, and he can go back to the earth after the working period. Most of the other habitants in Heaven have already ended their life on the earth and are preparing for their next life back on the earth. Since every human being has a life of just one hundred years, they live in Heaven for the rest of their life after they die on the earth. If you are dead at seventy, you live for thirty years in Heaven and start a new life on the earth as completely another person — you have no memory about the previous life. If you live on the earth for a hundred years or more, you immediately reincarnate without going to Heaven.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSoon, Kenta knows Heaven is not like he imagined before and not much different from the earth. It has towns, streets, stores, parks, vehicles, and anything which exists on the earth. He meets a beautiful woman named Sho^ko (TAKEUCHI Yu^ko). She has a grand piano in her cottage and that reminds him that he met her on the earth when he was a boy. She was a gifted pianist and inspired him to make himself a pianist. She tells him she has not played the piano since she lost her one earu0026#39;s hearing by an accident and has occasional pains in the ear.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAt the same time on the earth, Sho^kou0026#39;s niece, Kanako (Takeuchi, in a double role) is making efforts to restore the townu0026#39;s annual summer fireworks display after more than ten yearsu0026#39; interruption. She and her pals especially want to revive its highlight program, u0026quot;The Loving Fireworksu0026quot;. It is said couples will unite forever if they watch the firework. But Kanako and her pals face a big problem. There is the only man who can make the firework and he quit the job more than ten years ago. She finds and meets the fireworks maker but he tells her he has no intention to make u0026quot;The Loving Fireworksu0026quot; or any other fireworks. She gets to know the reason. When he invited his girlfriend to his workshop, he caused an accidental explosion and it robbed her of the one earu0026#39;s hearing and her music life as a pianist.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis film has two stories in Heaven and on the earth which go on at the same time. When and how will the two meet? And What will happen when they meet?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(7 out of 10)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eu003culu003eu003cliu003eUSHIRO Satoshiu003c/liu003eu003c/ulu003e”