Review | A Mother’s Touch movie review: in disappointing biopic, Koyuki plays the devoted mother of Japan’s first deaf-blind university graduate

Junpei Matsumoto’s film about Satoshi Fukushima, the world’s first blind-deaf university professor, focuses mostly on the devotion of his mother, Reiko

While she certainly helped her son overcome adversity, glossing over key parts of Satoshi’s life leaves him a supporting player in this melodramatic biopic

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Taketo Tanaka (left) and Koyuki in a still from “A Mother’s Touch” (category: I, Japanese), directed by Junpei Matsumoto.

Published: 5:15pm, 9 May 2023

2/5 stars

The story of Satoshi Fukushima, the first deaf-blind student to graduate from a Japanese university and later the world’s first university professor living with the dual disability, is told in A Mother’s Touch, director Junpei Matsumoto’s respectful, if somewhat disconnected drama.

As its title suggests, the film focuses as much on Satoshi’s mother, Reiko (sensitively portrayed by Koyuki), as it does on Satoshi himself (played for most the film by Taketo Tanaka).

In particular, the film details the unique communication technique of “finger Braille” which they developed together.

As such, it has a thematic connection with the 2021 film Zero to Hero, in which Sandra Ng Kwan-yue garnered acclaim for her performance as the mother of So Wa-wai, Hong Kong’s former Paralympic champion sprinter.