[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqiYXmpb41I]

The Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s surreal treatment of the ills of modern society has won him millions of fans worldwide and a reputation for introspection that will now extend to the big screen. Directed by the Vietnamese director, Tran Anh Hung.

The film adaptation of his bestseller Norwegian Wood opens in cinemas in Japan last December, in UK tomorrow. 23 years after the book first enraptured readers with its themes of love, loss and mental illness. Norwegian Wood has sold more than 10m copies in Japan and 2.6m overseas since it was published in 1987. His other books, notably Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, have been translated into dozens of languages.

A thoughtfully abridged adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s lilting 1987 chronicle of late-teen neurosis in 1960s Tokyo – a young woman, Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), who’s still traumatised by the suicide of a schoolyard sweetheart, breaks down when a friend casually strums through a rendition of The Beatles’ torch song ‘Norwegian Wood’. The idea that something as ephemeral as a pop song could release a storm cloud of sorrows encapsulates the objectives of this film. It asks: how can we ever really be sure of love without understanding the hidden impulses of others? And what’s the point of love if death’s cruel hand can swipe at any moment?

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