It's a dog's life for Richard Gere in Hachi

Gooey: Richard Gere stars in Hachi
21 November 2013

In the early Thirties, a Tokyo college professor rescued an Akita puppy he found wandering about Shibuya railway station. The dog, called Hachiko, accompanied him to and from work and, when the professor died, spent the rest of his life waiting at his master’s former home. There is now a statue of the dog at the station, and in 1987 a successful Japanese blockbuster was made about his loyal life.

Now there is an American version of the story, made by the Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom, whose most famous film was the classic My Life as a Dog, though it wasn’t actually about a dog. This movie might as well have been called the same. Hallstrom goes into black and white when he wants to show us what the dog sees (they don’t do colour). He has Richard Gere as the professor, a beautiful-looking Akita as Hachi, a tinkling piano-and-strings soundtrack and a determination to draw our tears without actually wallowing in gooey sentiment.

It’s an extraordinary and touching story but told with too beady an eye on the box-office for comfort — even if you’re a doggy person.

Hachi: A Dog's Tale
Cert: U

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in