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The most touching part about Hachiko is the famous 1930s true story on which it is based: of a faithful Akita dog that waited for his owner’s return outside Tokyo’s Shibuya station every day, despite the latter’s no-show for nine years. From the moment Richard Gere’s music professor brings home the accidentally abandoned dog, Hachi – who displays precious little personality apart from an unwillingness to play fetch – lives of the family members flash by amid a few tender but all-too-fleeting moments. (The title doesn’t lie: the movie is hardly about the humans.) And nothing could’ve saved the cutesy plot, whose sole driving force seems to be the relentless passage of time. You can imagine how dramatic falling leaves are.

Edmund Lee

Dir Lasse Hallström, Category I, 93 mins, opens Thursday 7