Before the Coffee gets Cold Jmovie review

It seems to be the season of time travelling stories for me. First it was the blah Theseus no Fune and the ok High Position and now Before the Coffee gets Cold.

Before the Coffee gets Cold is set in a cafe where people can time travel according to four strict rules:

1) You can only people who have been to the cafe
2) You can't change the present
3) There is only one seat that can time travel and you have to wait for the customer to leave the seat
4) You have to finish the coffee before it gets cold or else you will be stuck in the past

Before the Coffee gets Cold is what I would call an ensemble Jmovie with a few touching sub stories leading up to the touching main story. The last one of this type I saw was Kimutaku's Masquerade Hotel which I saw on the flight back from Japan.

The other equivalent would be those Hollywood movies named after a public holidays with a lot of famous faces on the poster. I've never seen any of them but I'd imagine they'd be similar with Before the Coffee gets Cold in that it just oversentimental smaltz.

I like heatwarming stories but when you have 4 stories one after another asking the audience "awww, isn't this touching?", I was tuning out after the second story. When a movie tries too hard to make me feel something, I go the opposite way.

That being said, I don't hate Before the Coffee gets Cold. I find it boring but its not made for me. Its made for people who enjoy crying for whatever reason.

I think it would have been better if it were shot in a more gritty, realistic way like a WOWOW dorama with a different lead. More like Shinya Shokudo aka Midnight Diner. Ultimately, Before the Coffe gets Cold is like Arimura Kasumi's acting, way too sweet with artificial sweeteners when it needed to be a bit more bitter like coffee. Movie is available at Avistaz.