Toru Hosokawa's fourth feature “The Hikita's Are Expectig!” also known as “Mr. Hikita, I am Knocked Up!” is a strange customer. As we follow the day-to-day life of an allegedly happily married couple – a 49 year-old writer Kunio Hikita (Yutaka Matsushige) and his almost two decades younger wife Sachi-chan (played by Keiko Kitagawa, aka Sailor Mars), at first all the wrong questions start materializing: why would anyone that young and sweet tolerate a constantly drunk, emotionally buttoned up man, or why is an uneven marital game presented as a blissful relationship. The skepticism gets replaced by a raised eyebrow and a sudden realization that the script co-penned by Kunio Hikita and the director himself wasn't meant to paint the picture of a classical union between two people that have to fight not only against our own prejudice as the audience, but also against those coming from their cultural heritage and the immediate environment.
“The Hikita's Are Expecting!” is screening as part of Father's Day Cheer on Asian Pop Up Cinema
Kunio gets confronted by Schi-chan's sudden wish to become a mother, and their previous, firm agreement about exactly never turning the twosome into a threesome or more, becomes a shock for a man whose only concern up to that point was if he was going to meet the deadlines set by his publisher and employer. He gets abruptly transformed into a person that he probably was when the two met, and this is a one lane street to something new.
But then, all efforts put into action to have a baby come across as pretty strange out of lack of real canoodling or generally the physical closeness one can perceive as authentic. Additionally, Hikita and Hosokawa fight with coming close to the problem of difficulties in conceiving that many couples have to deal with.
There is a voice-over, which is a thing one should go for if the script is solid as a rock. Alas, that's not the case in “The Hikita's Are Expecting!”. Sachi-chan's suffering gets pushed into the background, and Kunio becomes the bearer of ultimate pain. On one hand, it is logical that his masculinity is hurt by the clinically proved low sperm count, as all men around him seem to be “super fertile”, not only impregnating their wives, but also lovers, on the other hand – it is not actually contributing to the general picture of the family drama.
An effort to come back to the essence of the problems that tear the family apart is made, given in the character of Sachi-chan's father and his unwillingness to accept his daughter's choices. He represents the conservative society not willing to compromise with “otherness”.
“The Hikita's Are Expecting!” is a film that flies high and lands low by the log-dragging shots of the relationships's shifting forms.
