
If Blessed (2010)
The Radar read
A quieter title still finding its audience, though the rating rests on a thin sample, so treat it as provisional.
Synopsis
Poet Okachimachi Kaito makes his directing debut. Featuring lead actress Ono Machiko, who starred in The Mourning Forest (Mogari no Mori) and is also a regular in director Kawase Naomi's other works, this film portrays the pure love between a prisoner sentenced to death and the fiance of the man he killed, and was nominated to be in the section "Japanese Eyes" in the Tokyo International Film Festival. Jun (Kubota Masashi) receives the death penalty for a botched robbery that turned into murder and while in prison, he is visited by Kaoru (Ono), a Christian and the fiance of the man he killed. However, when her fiance was killed, he was secretly with another woman. Jun and Kaoru soon become attracted to one another and, using a bible, they start to communicate in secret.
Synopsis and metadata sourced from The Movie Database (TMDB).
Movie DNA · Double Feature
What should you watch after If Blessed?
Compare atmosphere, emotion, pace, twists, humour, romance, scale and realism — then get one ideal second feature.
Open Double Feature RadarRadar blends quality, momentum and freshness into one “what to watch now” number — so a great older film can sit lower than a rising new release. The Quality signal above is the time-neutral rating, which is why an acclaimed classic keeps a high quality score even when its Radar number is lower. Radar outputs are editorial algorithmic recommendations, not objective facts, and may change as signals update. A Radar score is not the same as a TMDB, IMDb or critic rating. How scoring works (v3.0).