Its hard to review a film like this when you've been looking forward to it so much. While its not my favorite of his books, I'm a big Haruki Murakami fan, and I love Anh Hung Tran's earlier films - I thought this was potentially a match made in heaven.

The film is good - very good. Just not the great film I'd hoped it would be. There are wonderful scenes and great acting, and the cinematography is beautiful. But I think there are some major flaws. The flow of the film is oddly disjointed at times - while the book is very much written from the perspective of an older, wiser man looking back at his immature youth, the film seems unsure of its own perspective. The voice-over is poorly structured, seemingly aimed at filling in narrative gaps rather than giving us the older narrators overview. Oddly for Tran, a director who has been extremely minimalist in the past, some scenes are far too overwrought, not helped by the intrusive and anachronistic score. The casting is also uneven - Rinko Kikuchi is a marvelous actress, but is simply too old to play a convincing 20 year old. The character of Reiko is also played by an actress much younger than the character in the book, but the part hasn't been changed accordingly. That said, Kenichi Matsuyama as Toru and in particular Kiko Mizuhara as Midori are terrific.

I really don't know how someone who doesn't know the book will react to this. I suspect that if you are a romantic at heart, you will like it, even if you find it a bit overlong and some of the characters too thinly drawn. Fans of the book will mostly love it as it is quite faithful (maybe too faithful) to the story.

The poet Rilke said, "There is only one journey. Going inside yourself. Here something blooms; from out of a silent crevice an unknowing weed emerges singing into existence." The unknowing weed takes its time to sing but sing it does in director Tran Anh Hung's film Norwegian Wood, his first since Vertical Ray of the Sun in 2000. Based on the best-selling 1987 novel of Haruki Murikami (which I haven't read), the film reflects the inner journey of 19-year-old Toru Watanabe (Ken'ichi Matsuyama), a journey that embodies the pain of love and loss, the tantalizing embrace of death, the end of dreams, and the beginning of adult responsibility.

Scored by Jonny Greenwood with some narration by Watanabe, the film takes place in Tokyo in 1967 in the midst of student protests against the War in Vietnam. Trying to ease the pain of the shattering loss of Kizuki (Kengo Kora), a close friend from high school, Watanabe immerses himself in his studies at school where he is majoring in drama and, with Nagasawa (Tetsuji Tamayama), an older and more experienced friend, is able to release his tension by going to bars and picking up girls for sex. Things change, however, when Kizuki's former girlfriend, the beautiful but emotionally fragile Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), shows up in Tokyo and reaches out to Watanabe for consolation. Though their language is exceedingly frank and sexually explicit, it is vital to understanding the characters and never used to titillate.

Their deepening relationship, however, only brings the feelings of loss closer to the surface and Naoko's ensuing emotional breakdown causes her to leave Tokyo for psychological rehabilitation at a mountain retreat where she is only able to see Watanabe intermittently. Even on occasional meetings, however, they embrace a dark ecstasy that inures them, at least temporarily, from their mutual grief, but when Naoko's roommate, music teacher Reiko (Reika Kirishima), sings the Lennon and McCartney song "Norwegian Wood" at Naoko's 20th birthday party, the line "and when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown," evokes tears that flow naturally.

Paralyzed by her sadness and feelings of responsibility for Kizuki's death, Naoko sinks deeper into despair and Watanabe's vows of lifelong fidelity are compromised by his attraction to Midori (Kiko Mizuhara), a smart, outgoing student who also has had to overcome a troubled past. Norwegian Wood is not a film about "teenage angst," or any other of the favorite catch phrases that substitute for empathy, but about the essence of life itself and the anguish of having to let go of attachments. More of a tone poem than a free-flowing narrative, the film creates an indelible experience of both exquisite beauty and aching pain, perhaps two sides of the same coin. Like the under-appreciated Tony Takitani, another film based on a story by Murakami, Norwegian Wood unfolds like a dream, evoking a mood of serenity and contemplation.

Supported by the stunning cinematography of Ping Bin Lee, much of the film's power takes place in the silences that allow us to simply observe the sublime beauty of the countryside, its forests, waterfalls, and the purity of its winter landscapes. While some may try, the film's emotional roller coaster cannot be filtered out and, in the process of assimilating it, it builds a quiet power that ensnares us and leaves us to explore its meanings long after the final credits. In spite of those who want to attach the label of "boring" to every film that moves slowly and requires concentration, Norwegian Wood will be remembered as one of Hung's best films and a work that brought cinema to a new level of artistic achievement.