In retelling the story of common bonding between the dog and its owner, so usual that it comes so natural, film is moving at slow pace, following events of an ordinary life, though not without occasional comedic and dramatic overtones.
After seeing this movie, and some additional research on the web, all pieces have fallen into place.
In time an occasion came up to meet a friend in Shibuya city, contemporary center of Tokyo's youth culture (shopping, fashion, nightlife.), and that's how I've learned about the popular local meeting point for all Tokyoites, the Hachikō Akita dog statue just outside of Shibuya Train Station, but the real story behind it has been still eluding me ever since.
Before my last year's visit to Tokyo I've been unaware of the true-life story this movie is based upon. NatGeo), however without a narrator so common in documentaries, and including well-known actors (Richard Gere, Sarah Roemer and Joan Allen), making it more suitable for theatrical distribution. Knowing the real-life story behind it, Hachiko: A Dog's Story (2009) has been made in a sort of staged documentary style, similar to the kind of movies often seen on documentary channels (e.g. The story is told in flashbacks as class assignment 'my hero' by Michael's teen son Robbie, who also gets an Akita puppy. Hachi refuses to accept this, being moved to Michael's home as Cate moves out, waiting for a master who can never come home again, by now collectively adopted by sympathizing town-folk. Hachi makes a habit of waiting for his equally doting master at the station every evening, but after a cardiac crisis, Parker dies.
Parker's Japanese college friend Ken inspires naming the pup Hachi(ko), and is pleasantly surprised when Parker successfully tackles the challenge to get it to fetch, which Akitas don't usually do. His bossy, jealous wife Cate initially makes Parker swear it won't stay, but by the time its' clear nobody will claim him and an adoption candidate is found, she agrees to keep the dog, who won over their daughter Andy and her fiance Michael at first sight. Commuting by train, music professor Parker Wilson finds an Akita puppy, whose cage broke unnoticed during shipping, leaving his destination unknown, and since the station can't care for it and the dog catcher warns even such cute ones may not be adopted in the two weeks allowed, he kindly takes it home.
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