I watched the English follow-up version (Living) before watching this original, and wished I had reversed my order. I liked Living much more than this original, but since both were written by the same Japanese scriptwriter, my preference might be cultural rather than due to quality issues, not to mention the scriptwriter had come up with improvements through the intervening years.

The club and bar scenes near the beginning seem to go on much longer than in the remake, or at least it felt like it! And the same for the later scenes with the young woman. Then again, that wouldn’t be surprising... read the rest.