Again...SPOILER ALERT for Kita Kita. This is your last chance to turn back if you haven't seen the film and refuse to have any detail spoiled.
Okay, you've been warned.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the flawed but engaging film "Kita Kita" I was a little surprised to learn of opinions being expressed that the film condoned stalking, with one writer even saying something like it was a mystery that intelligent people failed to realize that the film basically glorified it.
Having given the matter some thought, I can see where the criticism is coming from.
As an ode to the healing power of human kindness, the film really just sang to me, but as a love story, as much as I enjoyed most of it, I am ready to admit there are some moments that didn't always sit well with me.
I wasn't all that crazy about Tonyo, the character played by Empoy Marquez, being touchy-feely with the blind Lea played by Alessandra de Rossi. At no point in the film do the characters kiss, nor does Tonyo ever do anything grossly inappropriate, but in my opinion he pushed past acceptable personal boundaries more than once during their dates, before Lea warmed up to him. I get that there was this aspect of him testing the waters to see what he could get away with, hence the colloquial term "chancing" we use in the Philippines to describe someone trying to cop a feel from the object of their affection, but yes, I can see how that would be interpreted negatively, in the same way that, while I get why he thought it was okay to stare at Lea during their train ride (a scene that paid off in a joke about how she knew he was doing it, even though she was blind), I also get why this would be off-putting to many. Finally, considering that Lea basically didn't know him from Adam, it didn't really sit well with me that Tonyo felt he had to completely lie about his being new to Japan, when in fact it was revealed that he had been working there for an appreciable length of time.
In short, there is some evidence to justify this conclusion, and in truth, the film may have been better served without those little character quirks.
I respectfully object, however, to the notion that the film glorifies stalking, and I can cite four specific scenes in the film that were very deliberately written, precisely to make this point that Tonyo isn't just some sicko:
1. After Tonyo's death and when Lea discovers the contents of his small apartment, she learns that he has folded one thousand paper cranes, a reference to a line Lea dropped very early in the film in which she, a tour guide, told tourists that folding one thousand paper cranes supposedly grants people one wish. This scene, for at least one writer, is the moment when the "creepiness" supposedly starts, but I honestly didn't see it that way. In fact, when Lea reads the late Tonyo's letter informing her that he has just folded his thousandth crane and has wished for her to recover her sight, this is easily one of his more selfless moments, and not because he could have wished for something for himself.
Up until the time she saw him, Lea had no idea who Tonyo really was, and this worked to his advantage, an advantage that would have been in his interest to maintain for as long as he could considering that, although she had actually seen him several times before she went blind, they had never actually spoken. He would not have benefited at all from her being able to see him; he had already won, to some degree, her affection at that point and had she recognized him as someone she had seen many times before she might not have taken so kindly to him. In short, Tonyo had nothing to gain from Lea being able to see again and even potentially everything to lose, and yet he wished for it more than anything else.
2. When Tonyo, who has cleaned up and now wants to introduce himself properly to Lea, contemplates walking up to her in the park, he rehearses a proposed greeting: "Hi, I'm Tonyo," and then balks, concerned that he'll sound like a pervert ("parang manyak"). This could arguably go either way, given that he could just be concerned with appearances and nothing more, but in line with the other things he does in the film I think it's a sign of both his sincerity and the writer's awareness of how his character might be received. Basically, the writer indulges in a slightly "meta" moment to reassure the audience that, no, her male lead is not some kind of sexual deviant.
3. There is an utterly gratuitous scene in which Lea, still half-asleep, stumbles to the door in her t-shirt and underwear in response to Tonyo knocking. This is a perfect opportunity for Tonyo to ogle her long, shapely legs, considering she is blind and would be none the wiser, but he immediately turns around and then points out to her that she has no pants. In hindsight, I think this scene served literally no other purpose than to emphasize that Tonyo is NOT a degenerate.
4. Arguably the strongest argument against Tonyo being a creep is the scene in which he and Lea are inebriated, and in which Lea actually initiates romantic contact with Tonyo. If Tonyo were the full-on monster that the detractors of this film seem to claim he is, this exact moment should basically have been the jackpot for him. This should have been payoff time; the girl of his dreams is in his apartment, drunk, and now pawing at him. While she teases him about having evil intentions, it is she who ultimately starts kissing him. Were Tonyo's intentions truly despicable he would have basically gone for the proverbial gold, or at the very least stolen a kiss. I can think of quite a few movies, local and foreign, in which a moment like this would have been a moment for the leads to kiss, but it doesn't happen here. Does Tonyo deserve a medal for his restraint? Maybe not, but I'd argue he at least deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Whatever else Tonyo's quirks, I honestly think those four moments put firm emphasis on the true nature of his character, and while he is certainly flawed and certainly not above appreciating Lea's striking beauty (i.e. the staring scene), ultimately, his motives are pure.
Overall, it's not a perfect film. As I said, as a straight-up love story, the film has its fair share of problems, but as a fable about the beauty and power of human kindness, it really is an exceptional yarn.
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