G | 1h 33min | Drama | 2009

Director Lasse Hallstrom’s film, “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” is about the revered, dignified, fiercely loyal Akita breed of dog from mountainous Japan, hailing from ancient times.

At a bustling train station, an Akita pup stops at the feet of music professor Parker Wilson (Richard Gere). Parker finds the pup so endearing that he tries, reluctantly, to trace the owner, and then, not so reluctantly, takes it home to his wife Cate (Joan Allen) and daughter Andy (Sarah Roemer). Despite Cate’s initial reservations, the smitten Parker rears it as his own, naming it “Hachi” after its curious Japanese name tag.

As Hachi grows, he accompanies Parker to the station where Parker boards for work every morning and returns every evening to accompany him home. Over the years, that ritual sees station square regular commuters befriending Hachi, stopping to ruffle his coat and ask, “Hey Hachi, how’re you doing?”

Parker doesn’t know why Hachi is different (he doesn’t fetch a ball, as most dogs do) until Japanese colleague Ken (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) explains. Akitas don’t fetch. They’re not people-pleasers. They can’t be bought: “If he’s gonna fetch, it’ll be for a very special reason.” The day Hachi finally fetches, it’s like he’s preventing Parker from boarding his train; hours later Parker, at the university, collapses.

Will Hachi continue waiting for him at the station?

The True Story

Mr. Hallstrom’s film is an American adaptation of the 1987 Japanese film based on the real-life Hachiko. Mr. Hallstrom pays solemn tribute with his closing-credits text: “When his master, a professor, died in 1925, the real-life Hachi (born in Japan in 1923) returned to the Shibuya train station the next day, and the next nine years, to wait. Hachiko died in 1934. Today, his statue sits in vigil there.”

Lovingly, Mr. Hallstrom shows how the train horn is Hachi’s cue for Parker’s arrival, and how Hachi weathers sun, rain, and snow while waiting. A low-angle shot captures the tree above, shedding and gaining foliage with each passing season.

Three Akitas (Layla, Chico, and Forrest) of different ages play Hachi.

Mr. Gere, known for his patronage of ancient Eastern traditions, and an accomplished musician himself, co-produces.

Devoted Dog

For Parker’s family and passersby, Hachi’s devotion is too perfect to imitate. It’s beyond what their bodies or minds can understand, let alone do. But there’s a reason it stirs. It challenges self-centered relationships that often pass for love. Mr. Hallstrom handpicks ephemeral symbols—popcorn, a ball game on TV, a hot dog, a single note or piece of music—all the while signaling something of the eternal.

Mr. Hallstrom’s point is that love is nothing if it isn’t loyal, a lie if it isn’t steadfast. Love is more than a fickle connection between names, faces, voices, skin tones, and bodies. Parker asks the young suitor who fancies his daughter if he loves her. The man nods. Parker nods, too: “That’s what you want to remember on the bad days.” Without saying it, Parker presumes bad days include death, not just disease.

The word “inseparable” denotes intimacy that can’t bear separation, and perhaps it’s why Ken reads from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” at Parker’s funeral: “The soul is not more than the body … the body is not more than the soul. … I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least. … In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass.”

When Andy is awed that her parents are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, Cate implies that their devotion runs deeper; Cate and Parker have been together longer than they’ve been apart. Ken seems to have been Parker’s friend for almost as long. Both visit Parker’s grave in remembrance.

Thing is, Hachi’s bond with Parker feels deeper still. It isn’t a dog–master bond of obedience, either; Parker can’t even get Hachi to fetch. Perhaps it’s more akin to a bond with Parker’s heart? Even that sounds limiting—a bond preserved merely in life? Maybe it’s truer to say that it’s a bond with Parker’s soul, preserved even in death.

Hachi appears to refine Whitman, who confesses in verse that there’s a lot he understands “not.” Hachi’s devotion hints that the soul is indeed more than the body, for it outlasts it, making the body do what it can otherwise only dream of. Sometimes that’s fetching a ball, even when it doesn’t want to. At other times, it’s waiting years for someone, but with each new day as defiantly, inexplicably as hopeful as the last.

You can watch “Hachi, A Dog’s Tale” on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Vudu.

‘Hachi, A Dog’s Tale’ Director: Lasse Hallstrom Starring: Richard Gere, Joan Allen MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 1 hour, 33 minutes Release Date: Jun. 13, 2009 Rated: 4 stars out of 5

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