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James Marsh

2/5 stars
Touch, a cross-cultural romance spanning 50 years and told in three different languages, follows an ageing widower as he embarks on a globetrotting search for the young Japanese woman he fell in love with decades earlier.
The film is based on a 2022 novel by Olafur Johann Olafsson – perhaps better known for overseeing the launch of PlayStation during his time at Sony – who adapts his book with fellow Icelander Baltasar Kormakur, who also directs.
Set at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Touch opens as Kristofer (played by Icelandic musician Egill Olafsson) discovers his memory is fading and, heeding the advice of his doctor to resolve any unfinished business, sets off for London, despite the imminent threat of a worldwide lockdown.


Through a series of flashbacks, we meet the younger Kristofer (played by the director’s son Palmi Kormakur) in London at the end of the 1960s.
Disillusioned by the contemporary political landscape, he drops out of university and takes a job washing dishes at a Japanese restaurant, where he is taken under the wing of the proprietor, Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki).
He meets Takahashi’s beautiful daughter Miko (model Koki, also known as Mitsuki Kimura, the daughter of Japanese pop icons Takuya Kimura and Shizuka Kudo) at the restaurant, and the pair soon begin a passionate affair.
The structure of Touch sees the events of the past and present converge in a climactic revelation that explains why Kristofer and Miko’s relationship ended.
Suffice to say, Miko and her father fled Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945, with the dream of starting a new life in London.

Try as they might, the lingering impact of the event and the stigma of being hibakusha – atomic bomb survivors – would continue to impact their lives for many decades to come.
Kormákur has an eclectic filmography, ranging from the indie art house comedy 101 Reykjavík to the mountain-climbing disaster movie Everest.
In Touch, his direction is gentle and unobtrusive, almost to a fault. The film’s perspective aligns with Kristofer, as he, and the audience, is kept in the dark while the film’s Japanese characters wrestle with their trauma off screen.

Rather than attempt to explore the deep emotional scars that burden Miko and her family, the film prioritises the nostalgic reminiscences of Kristofer’s first love.
During these moments, Touch captures moments of genuine warmth and youthful passion. But elsewhere the film proves hollow and reductive.
Miko and her family’s struggles remain largely unexplored, portrayed by Olafur and his director as simply the mystifying enigmas of an exotic people.
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Koki and Palmi Kormakur in a still from Touch. Photo: Lilja Jonsdottir/Focus Features

Palmi Kormakur and Koki in a still from Touch (category IIB, English, Japanese, Icelandic), directed by Baltasar Kormakur and co-starring Egill Olafsson. Photo: Lilja Jonsdottir/Focus Features



Egill Olafsson in a still from Touch. Photo: Baltasar Breki Samper/Focus Features

Koki (left) in a still from Touch. Photo: Lilja Jonsdottir/Focus Features

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Japanese model Koki plays Icelandic man’s 1960s lover in drama that is warm, but shallow in its portrayal of Hiroshima bombing survivors


This Covid-set drama with Koki and Masahiro Motoki, about an Icelandic man searching for his Japanese flame from the 1960s, could have done more to explore the struggles of Hiroshima bombing survivors.


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Review

Review | Touch movie review: intercultural romance gives hollow portrayal of atomic bomb survivors

Japanese model Koki plays Icelandic man’s 1960s lover in drama that is warm, but shallow in its portrayal of Hiroshima bombing survivors