Mixed Doubles (2017)
Tamako Tomita (Yui Aragaki) grew up under a strict mother who imposes her own dreams of becoming a tennis champion on her daughter. After her death, Tamako is finally free to lead her own normal life as an office lady and falling in love with a rising tennis star player, Akihiko Ejima (Koji Seto).
Things are going great and Tamako even considers the possibility of marriage until a new tennis player, Airi Ogasawara (Mei Nagano) plays alongside Akihiko. And before long, Tamako caught him cheating with Airi which left her devastated as she goes back to her hometown to live with her father.
She sleepwalks through life working in a local factory but was fired for her clumsiness and lack of motivation in working. Wanting to help her father, she reluctantly took over the family’s rundown tennis club which only have five members, each with their own baggages searching for something.
The newest member is Hisashi Hagiwara (Eita Nagayama), a divorced former boxer who, like her, is sleepwalking through life working at a local construction. He wants to play tennis as he hopes to catch up with his lost daughter who is interested in the same sport and also to find a new sport he could work on.
Yayoi Yoshioka (Ryoko Hirosue) who is Tamako’s former schoolmate is trying to escape from her restrictive marriage with her conservative husband and finds solace in tennis to vent her frustration. Yuma Sasaki (Hayato Sano) is a high school loner who couldn’t fit in school but find a sense of belonging at the club.
Motonobu Ochiai (Kenichi Endo) and Mika Ochiai (Misako Tanaka) is a middle aged married couple who not only play tennis to stay healthy but to continue their late son’s love of tennis before he died at a young age. Tamako’s presence in the club changes their fate as she is determined to revive the club.
In a bid to lure new members, they must first produce results and Tamako decides to get them into the national tournament and enter as Mixed Doubles where they will have higher chance of winning than playing as singles. They trained for a year and participated in several minor tournaments as practice.
They enlist the help of former China national tennis players, who now runs their own restaurant near the tennis club they frequent. For a while, things were going well until Tamako and Hisahi’s former ex’s re-appeared in their lives complicating things, jeopardising their tournament. This is where both Tamako and Hisahi has to make a decision to either go back to the past that they both yearned for or to finally let go to move forward into the new future, a decision that will not only affect their own lives but the lives of the tennis club players who had sacrifice so much to get this far for the tournament.
It’s like watching a live action anime sports about life, where they can make something simple like tennis into a relatable and meaningful film. It has a mix of comedy and seriousness. It’s the first film that I watch Mei Nagano being the “villain”. And watching Yui Aragaki being a riot is always a joy.
