The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A simple, heartwarming story of a loyal dog that waits for his master after his master's untimely death. The dog: an Akita. The story is real and took place in Japan in the early 20th Century.

I cant remember when I cried the last time in my life. This movie made me cry during the last 30 minutes of the movie and even still an hour after the it ended... 2 hours later I'm still sad... I couldn't give 10 out of 10, only because it felt like a torture watching it even though its a beautiful (but heart breaking) film...

If you want to cry for the sake of crying, then watch this movie. You know it's going to be sad, and sad it is.There were moments towards the end where small plot details made no sense, but I'm not going to spoil the movie for you. It seems like the plot was made that way it is in order to make the movie as sad as possible, and it seems most of the crying audience don't realize the flaws, perhaps because their eyes are too wet.Apart from that, it is a well-made movie, and it has a really nice doggo, so it still warrants a 7/10.

Oh my, hold everything. You want to be prepared to watch this movie with plenty of Kleenex on hand. It really does resonate for viewers who have a special bond with their pets, but I think it probably moves a few hearts of those who don't share hearth and home with a favorite canine. It's a bit ironic actually, to think about the picture's impact on a person, when a dog's reaction to it's missing owner invites more sympathy than one feels for the owner himself, who died of a heart attack.Well, not to get too morbid, this was a sensitively told tale that one finds astonishingly hard to believe when it's revealed that Hachi celebrated his master for ten years after the man's death by showing up daily at a train station at the end of the work day to greet him. Based on an actual event that occurred in Japan in the 1920's, the film has been Westernized for an American audience with Richard Gere in the lead role as a university professor who adopts a wayward Akita puppy found wandering around a train station. But the real star is the pup who matures into the adult Hachi and takes full possession of the viewer's emotions on the way to a heart tugging finish. It's a family friendly film that you're not likely to forget for a long time once you've seen it.