Review: A talking flower nearly derails otherwise pleasant-enough The Last Blossom

An elderly yakuza lies on a thin mattress on the floor of his prison cell, the cell that has been his home for decades. He can feel that the end might be near, so he starts to take account of his life, the choices he made that led him here, the people he hurt, the ones he loved. Some of the memories are painful, some painfully beautiful: he still remembers the clear view of fireworks he had from his hillside apartment, at least before the high-rises went up, effectively stealing that view from him and his makeshift family. And there are, of course, memories of violence, including one violent act that forever changed the trajectory of his life (and the lives of a few others close to him).

In The Last Blossom, we're constantly pulled between the past and present, walking the line between what was true, what could have been, and what is. Akutsu, despite spending such a huge part of his life behind bars, doesn't live with as many regrets as you might expect. He lived a hard life, a dangerous life, but he also took care of the people most important to him: namely, a pregnant woman named Nana he took in, and then her baby boy, Kensuke. The relationship between Akutsu and Nana is a blurry one, hard to exactly define. There's certainly chemistry there, even love, but Akutsu keeps her somewhat at arm's length, knowing that his profession could spell trouble for Nana and Kensuke. He doesn't want them to be caught in the crossfire.

The film's story isn't breaking new ground. It's fairly straightforward, taking us through those last years of freedom Akutsu lived, with glimpses of his family life and the escalating tensions at work. Akutsu mostly lays low -- we actually don't see much of what he gets up to as a yakuza. But his ally/friend/mentor Tsutsumi is more of a wildcard, biting into (or maybe creating whole cloth) rumors of turf wars and shifts in power that could lead to a bigger piece of the pie for him. Akutsu has one foot in a quiet domestic life (often punctuated with games of Othello), the other in a violent world that could spiral out of control at any moment. Eventually, it does.

The elderly Akutsu, lying in his cell, lives a similarly split existence: one foot in his aged body, slowly tottering toward death; the other, walking down paths of memory.

Oh, and there's a talking flower.

Not to bury the lede, but the older Akutsu has a balsam flower (the film's Japanese title is ホウセンカ, Hōsenka, the Japanese name for the plant) living in a tin can in his cell. It's his only friend, his confidante, and, strangely, the film's comic relief. This is an extremely sassy flower, pulling all kinds of poses, rattling off wise-cracks, and otherwise providing levity just by means of existing. When I heard about this movie, I never imagined the flower (which is prominently featured in images, posters, etc.) could talk. I guess I never saw a trailer? 

For some, this talking flower is probably the exact right ingredient to give this movie a little extra something, since it's otherwise a fairly straight-on, even unremarkable story (if still a sweet one). It's certainly novel, unexpected. But man, I just found the flower to be so obnoxious. To me, it felt like a case of the writer not being confident enough in the bones of the story, and relying too much on the crutch of this gimmick to bring it across the finish line, like adding a too-savory sauce onto an unseasoned steak in the hopes that the flavor masks the lack. I tried to get on the wavelength of the movie existing this way, because this is what the movie is, but it just did not work for me.

Especially late in the film, when the flower taps into its root-based hive mind to give Akutsu insight into what's happening in the outside world. Again, this feels like a cop-out, an easy way to allow our protagonist to connect to characters, places, and events that he otherwise wouldn't be privy to. Like, I get it, we need to find a way for all of these things to bump up against each other, but I found the flower-based psychic powers to be a bit limp.

Despite all this, I still found The Last Blossom to be, largely, a pleasant-enough watch. The animation is lovely, and some of the facial animation reminded me of classic Miyazaki. Tsutsumi's expressions, in particular, sometimes looked like they could've come right out of Castle in the Sky or Porco Rosso. And as generally unremarkable as the story is, these's an almost cozy quality to it, a quaint spin on the "old man remembering his life" type of tale that is easy to watch. Not every movie needs to challenge the viewer. This one certainly doesn't.

The Last Blossom comes to theaters, courtesy of GKIDS, on August 30.