As Masao Matsuyoshi’s (Steve Iwamoto) health continues to disintegrate under the strain of cancer coursing through his body, his family gathers around to celebrate his life and see the patriarch for possibly the last time. The doctors, nurses, and family-turned caretakers are not the only visitors the dying man has, though, as ghosts from his past visit him to relive their memories together as they prepare to welcome the man in his death. 

Written and directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi, I Was a Simple Man is a tone poem full of regret and loss and the permeance of past decisions. The ethereal narrative is loosely structured around the present storyline of Masao’s imminent death, but it goes off for long stretches filling in aspects of the man’s past – the people he met, the people he loved, and ultimately the people he pushed away. It is a heavy film and one without much hope which makes for an unsettling watch.  

Oftentimes, the idea of being reunited with loved ones in the afterlife is seen as something to strive for, but here it highlights a lifetime of regret and remorse. In a way, it can be a call to arms to its audience to make sure they respect the fragility of life and make amends with those in their own lives whom they have gone astray, but it is not exactly clearly communicated as, like Masao, Yogi pushes the audience away from the film through his overly complicated construction. 

The overlapping timelines here, while effective in creating the mood for the film complicate the otherwise simple narrative and work to constantly obscure the intention and path of the script without much clarity of purpose. The visuals of the ghosts in the room with the doctors and caretakers are all very nice, but overall, the film goes out of its way to be overly cerebral when it really does not have to be and suffers in its attempt to constantly conceal and cloak what is happening. 

While I Was a Simple Man stumbles in its execution, its performances across the board are all very affecting and help keep us engaged with the film. Iwamoto, as the central figure of the film, brings an incredible amount of vulnerability to the role. There is some early fear as he lays down the ring of salt to protect himself from the encroaching spirits, but when he discovers it to be the ghost of his late wife, Grace (Constance Wu), he breaks the line to allow her to cross into the home. From this moment forward, we begin to travel back in time with Masao, through his memories and it helps to fill in the blanks of why his family is the way they are in the present.  

The numerous flashbacks work to varying degrees of success, opening with a tender reflection on the man’s relationship with his daughter, Kati (Alexa Bodden). After the passing of his wife, Masao begins to push the girl away but still feels a fatherly obligation to her in the same way that, years later on his death bed, the now-adult Kati (Chanel Akiko Hirai) will care for her father more out of obligation than of love. It is a sentiment held by many of those around the dying man who sheltered himself away from them all, his grandson Gavin (Kanoa Goo) admitting he is not close to his grandfather at all but is there to help the man navigate his daily life at the house. 

Most prominently is a recollection of when Masao (Tim Chiou) was with Grace (Boonyanudh Jiyarom), early in their life together, as she tells him of a dream she had of the future. As it turns out, her dream comes true, and unfortunately for Masao, her dream is one that results in loss and loneliness. This sequence is the greatest example of how Yogi’s construction of the narrative is detrimental to the overall success of the film. The entire crux of the film is delivered late in the final act through this monologue as if it was the expositionary voiceover that opens many a film. Further, by this point, we know most of what Grace is saying through some exchanges from Gavin and Kati. 

I Was a Simple Man is a great concept, but despite Yogi’s direction of his actors and beautiful cinematography by Eunsoo Cho, it just is not enough to carry the script that undermines its own story in favor of being purposefully concealing. There is a rich landscape, both in the beauty of Hawaii where the film takes place, and narratively in a man ruminating on his life as he faces death, and while this feels like a very personal project for Yogi, it does not change the fact that what is presented on screen is a little too thin for such a deep concept. It is all feeling, all tone, and while he expertly creates and maintains that throughout the duration, the story is not developed and presented in a clear enough way to be justifiable.