Recommended Reads/Movies (Adaptation Talk), as of 1/18/13
In the stand-alone book department, I finished Who Could That Be At This Hour?, the Lemony Snicket sort-of-prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events. It was an odd read: familiar themes were hit on (adults being utterly indifferent/unhelpful to children, wacky definitions of "difficult" words, vague conspiracies tip-toed around) and at least one of the characters was made of win. (For the record, 'Ellington Feint' is my new favorite pseudonym.) But the whole affair never quite congealed properly, at least for my tastes, and at times felt overly forced. Still, there are some very funny bits, and perhaps the sequel will illuminate some (most definitely not all, this being Daniel Handler's work) of the odd conspiracies and contrivances that this volume hinted at.
Switching genres, I have finally gotten around to seeing the live-action Rurouni Kenshin movie, and I am most pleased.
Before I go into any more detail, I need to get the following out of my system: OMG OMG OMG IT WAS PERFECT CASTING AND KENSHIN/KAORU ARE MY OTP FOREVER AND OMG OMG OMG THE WIRE WORK WAS AMAZING AND OMG OMG OMG THIS WAS PERFECT LIKE THE MANGA CAME TO LIFE PERFECT OMG. *coughs* Ahem, sorry. Now on to the more mature analysis:
So, basically, yeah, in case it's not clear, I really, really enjoyed it. The screenwriters wisely left out the two major Big Bads (Shishio Makoto, a.k.a. Psycho Bastard #1, and Tomoe's brother, whose name has completely escaped me, but both of their blah-blah gets real old, real fast) and concentrated instead on the smaller scale Kanryu and Jin-ei as villains, which allowed the story to meet almost all of the Kenshin-gumi in detail, and even managed to include smaller characters, like Tae at the Akabeko. (Even Tsubame shows up, but the poor thing didn't get a speaking part.)
All the casting was very well done, to the point that I found myself liking characters who I hadn't liked before. Saito Hajime, for example, was never my favorite guy in the manga because his coldness came off as two-dimensional, but in the movie, the actor playing him made the coldness more natural, a consequence of extreme focus instead of a sole, character-defining trait. Even the ugly hench-guys turned out to have personality under all those deformities! What a pleasant surprise!
Sato Takeru was... well, damn. He *looked* the part, and he acted it so well that there were a couple of times when I had to remind myself he wasn't really Kenshin. I was particularly impressed when he switched into "Battousai-mode"; he changed everything about the way he played the character, from speech to movement, in a split second, and it was a great dramatic juncture. But the rest of the movie, the way he played Kenshin was believable and sweet, and the script, some of which borrowed directly from the manga itself, let him have a lot of scenes where he was careful and thoughtful, as well as kick-ass and cool. (And may I just say, during the fight scenes, DAMN all over again. Even if some of that was a stunt double, it was some excellent movement that required serious physical commitment.) My hat's off to you, Mr. Sato.
As for Kaoru, I remember there was some complaint a while back that the actress was too pretty or something, and I didn't feel that way at all. She was sweet and idealistic, and a good foil to Megumi, who was her great, trickster self, and also awesome in just about every scene she was in. My major quibble is that the script didn't give either of them as much awesome time as I would have liked, and both of them, despite admirable efforts to the contrary, ended up as damsels in distress. I suspect this is the fault of the source material rather than the movie itself, and it is true that both of them were very true to the spirits of their respective characters.
Mostly, this movie made me want to sit down and reread the entire manga, and then have a rewatch of the anime, just to hear all that oro-ing again, the one thing absent from the script. I found myself falling in love with the story all over again--Kenshin is a unique character, and the stories and characters that surround him are variations on good themes but with interesting twists. Seeing something I loved so much brought to life respectfully and with a few flourishes of its own is a rare treat, and this movie did not disappoint. The other wonderful thing about this movie was that you didn't need to be familiar with the source material to enjoy it; all the major plot points were clear and the characters' backgrounds were succinctly explained.
I am more than happy to share this DVD with anyone who's interested, although I would like it back at some point. Anyone who's willing to read slightly poorly translated subtitles, PM or email me, and we'll work something out. :)
Switching genres, I have finally gotten around to seeing the live-action Rurouni Kenshin movie, and I am most pleased.
Before I go into any more detail, I need to get the following out of my system: OMG OMG OMG IT WAS PERFECT CASTING AND KENSHIN/KAORU ARE MY OTP FOREVER AND OMG OMG OMG THE WIRE WORK WAS AMAZING AND OMG OMG OMG THIS WAS PERFECT LIKE THE MANGA CAME TO LIFE PERFECT OMG. *coughs* Ahem, sorry. Now on to the more mature analysis:
So, basically, yeah, in case it's not clear, I really, really enjoyed it. The screenwriters wisely left out the two major Big Bads (Shishio Makoto, a.k.a. Psycho Bastard #1, and Tomoe's brother, whose name has completely escaped me, but both of their blah-blah gets real old, real fast) and concentrated instead on the smaller scale Kanryu and Jin-ei as villains, which allowed the story to meet almost all of the Kenshin-gumi in detail, and even managed to include smaller characters, like Tae at the Akabeko. (Even Tsubame shows up, but the poor thing didn't get a speaking part.)
All the casting was very well done, to the point that I found myself liking characters who I hadn't liked before. Saito Hajime, for example, was never my favorite guy in the manga because his coldness came off as two-dimensional, but in the movie, the actor playing him made the coldness more natural, a consequence of extreme focus instead of a sole, character-defining trait. Even the ugly hench-guys turned out to have personality under all those deformities! What a pleasant surprise!
Sato Takeru was... well, damn. He *looked* the part, and he acted it so well that there were a couple of times when I had to remind myself he wasn't really Kenshin. I was particularly impressed when he switched into "Battousai-mode"; he changed everything about the way he played the character, from speech to movement, in a split second, and it was a great dramatic juncture. But the rest of the movie, the way he played Kenshin was believable and sweet, and the script, some of which borrowed directly from the manga itself, let him have a lot of scenes where he was careful and thoughtful, as well as kick-ass and cool. (And may I just say, during the fight scenes, DAMN all over again. Even if some of that was a stunt double, it was some excellent movement that required serious physical commitment.) My hat's off to you, Mr. Sato.
As for Kaoru, I remember there was some complaint a while back that the actress was too pretty or something, and I didn't feel that way at all. She was sweet and idealistic, and a good foil to Megumi, who was her great, trickster self, and also awesome in just about every scene she was in. My major quibble is that the script didn't give either of them as much awesome time as I would have liked, and both of them, despite admirable efforts to the contrary, ended up as damsels in distress. I suspect this is the fault of the source material rather than the movie itself, and it is true that both of them were very true to the spirits of their respective characters.
Mostly, this movie made me want to sit down and reread the entire manga, and then have a rewatch of the anime, just to hear all that oro-ing again, the one thing absent from the script. I found myself falling in love with the story all over again--Kenshin is a unique character, and the stories and characters that surround him are variations on good themes but with interesting twists. Seeing something I loved so much brought to life respectfully and with a few flourishes of its own is a rare treat, and this movie did not disappoint. The other wonderful thing about this movie was that you didn't need to be familiar with the source material to enjoy it; all the major plot points were clear and the characters' backgrounds were succinctly explained.
I am more than happy to share this DVD with anyone who's interested, although I would like it back at some point. Anyone who's willing to read slightly poorly translated subtitles, PM or email me, and we'll work something out. :)