Ever heard of a cellphone novel? It’s one that you download in short installments onto your cellphone and read them just as you would an sms. The genre is extremely popular in Japan, where 5 of the top 10 bestselling titles of 2007 were cellphone novels. Threads of Destiny is only the second Japanese film adapted from such a novel, and its box-office performance has already surpassed the first film, Sky of Love.

Yet the reasons for its popularity escape us.

We found Threads of Destiny sickeningly sweet and melodramatic in its telling of two teenage lovers (Nao Minamisawa and Junpei Mizobata) who face the trials of life together, from peer pressure and drug addiction to domestic violence and suicide. As they grow closer after each experience, they recognise how their fates are bound to each other.

If you’re an incurable romantic who believe in stuff like destiny and soulmates, you may be able to stomach this. We, on the other hand, had to suppress our urge to vomit.