Hello Kousuke!

Oct 16, 2013 12:22




Although he doesn't look like Kousuke on the magz cover here, but none other than the fabulous Matsumoto Jun himself :)

Okuda Kousuke is an ordinary salaryman, and unlike Jun, he is described as a motenai (unpopular) guy, and Jun did a great job playing as the role. He put on some weight to erase the "sparkling, glittery idol" aura, and it really worked, lol. Although I prefer Jun than Kousuke, of course xD

The movie itself was awesome! The imagery was beautiful, just like Jun mentioned in one of the interviews. I read the original novel, and to be honest, it was kind of boring, so I was worried how the movie would turn out, but it exceeded the novel!

It exceeded my expectation as well. It really made you want to fall in love, or think about the concept of true and eternal love (cheesy xD).

One of the things that turned me off a bit from the book is that I think it put too much emphasis on the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (which is also the theme song), so much that I thought probably the author was inspired by the song and built the whole plot based on it. But in the movie, the song serves "only" as an element to complete the story, and it fits so nicely.

Regarding the plot, the ending also has some differences with the book, but I prefer the movie version. Overall though, you can still feel that as a "fantasy" story, it doesn't have enough amount of fantasy. The only thing missed from the movie is explanation of how they got to see each other again, while in the book it was because Mao looked for Kousuke.

About the cast, Jun's acting was great, although I think he did better in Lucky Seven or Ah, Kouya  (maybe you can't compare a drama series or a stageplay with a movie but he hadn't had movies in a long time), but what's more, Jun was able to present himself as a completely different character. Even if you initially think that it was Jun on the screen, before you knew it, you'd forget it was him, and could only see him as the "ordinary" Okuda Kousuke. I think it's a success for him in that term.

The teenage Kousuke and Mao were also great, but surprisingly, I think Ueno Juri's acting was lacking something. Her acting was flat all through the movie, even her smile felt like forced sometimes. It was such a shame because I thought (and still think) she is a perfect cast for Watarai Mao.

This really makes me think, a great actor/actress would make the character as his/her own, regardless of their original image. Like this movie, after I read the book, I doubted if Jun could play as Okuda (I would've cast Okada Masaki instead, lol), while I was sure Juri would make a perfect cast for Watarai Mao. Actually, a journalist who interviewed Jun also commented that Jun's strength in acting is he did exactly that, he could make people think no one could've done the role better than him (I forgot from which mag, considering the sheer amount of articles on Jun I read lately, should go back and reread). This commentary makes me crave for different, various roles for Jun even more.

Overall, Hidamari no Kanojo is a really good movie. Even if you don't like the "secret" revealed in the end, I recommend watching it for the beautiful imagery, and for how human it is, despite of the fantasy....

I myself is going to watch it for the second time soon....:)))

PS:  the ending theme by Yamashita Tatsuro is just perfect, I haven't been listening to his mucic lately but he again proves that he is a legend...such a beautiful song!

review-ish, jun, via ljapp

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