"Warau Mikaeru" Review
Yesterday I watched Warau Mikaeru, a Japanese movie from 2006. It stars Ueno Juri (incredible in Nodame Cantabile) as Fumio, a young woman who is taken in by her long-lost older brother after her mother dies. She is enrolled in a all-girl religious academy called St. Michael's. She can't manage to keep up her prim-and-proper facade for long, but ends up befriending the class president and vice-president, who are also not quite as proper as they make themselves out to be, as a result. In their first meeting, they are mysteriously given super-strength, super-speed, and the ability to shoot lightning. ...Yeah. Between trying to act proper for their instructors and introducing the rest of the school to the pleasures of Chicken Ramen, they end up getting caught up in kidnapping ring and have to use their powers to free the captured girls. Plenty of choreographed martial arts follows.
You can't take this movie seriously. It just isn't possible. The main plot is already way out there, without even mentioning the comical CG (particularly the school's mascot, a dog named Damian, which is also entirely in CG) and the exaggerated and stereotyped portrayal of the European kidnappers. Or the narrator who jumps in to correct the girls' frequent misuse of idioms. The large fight scene is pretty funny and of course heavy on the stuntmen/women, as none of the starring girls can fight at all. I think this movie actually features the lowest-contact fighting in the history of martial arts sequences on film.
The acting isn't anything too special all-around, with the exception of the starring Ueno Juri, who has a great presence and plays her role as a slightly rebellious and typical girl forced to be reserved and proper by the academy. The diminutive Taira Airi undergoes a pretty startling visual transformation into the extremely reserved-looking class president. She is backed up by Seki Megumi, playing the slightly tomboyish class vice-president competently enough. Fumio's older brother is played by Iseya Yuusuke, who plays his unerringly cultured, sophisticated and outwardly cold role very effectively.
The main problem facing this movie is that it really isn't that interesting. It was the guaranteed camp factor and the great Ueno Juri who drew me in, and I'm sure that's enough to draw others in as well. Unfortunately, despite the ridiculous circumstances the whole thing still feels a bit bland and uninspired. Despite being only around 90 minutes long, it still feels like it drags at parts. The conclusion to the conflict has one of the most egregious uses of CG that I've ever seen, and there are some definite logic gaps regarding how the kidnapping plot fits into the rest of the story. For very big fans of camp and/or Ueno Juri, as I am, you will probably find things to keep you interested through the movie, but for everyone else, it isn't really worth checking out.
You can't take this movie seriously. It just isn't possible. The main plot is already way out there, without even mentioning the comical CG (particularly the school's mascot, a dog named Damian, which is also entirely in CG) and the exaggerated and stereotyped portrayal of the European kidnappers. Or the narrator who jumps in to correct the girls' frequent misuse of idioms. The large fight scene is pretty funny and of course heavy on the stuntmen/women, as none of the starring girls can fight at all. I think this movie actually features the lowest-contact fighting in the history of martial arts sequences on film.
The acting isn't anything too special all-around, with the exception of the starring Ueno Juri, who has a great presence and plays her role as a slightly rebellious and typical girl forced to be reserved and proper by the academy. The diminutive Taira Airi undergoes a pretty startling visual transformation into the extremely reserved-looking class president. She is backed up by Seki Megumi, playing the slightly tomboyish class vice-president competently enough. Fumio's older brother is played by Iseya Yuusuke, who plays his unerringly cultured, sophisticated and outwardly cold role very effectively.
The main problem facing this movie is that it really isn't that interesting. It was the guaranteed camp factor and the great Ueno Juri who drew me in, and I'm sure that's enough to draw others in as well. Unfortunately, despite the ridiculous circumstances the whole thing still feels a bit bland and uninspired. Despite being only around 90 minutes long, it still feels like it drags at parts. The conclusion to the conflict has one of the most egregious uses of CG that I've ever seen, and there are some definite logic gaps regarding how the kidnapping plot fits into the rest of the story. For very big fans of camp and/or Ueno Juri, as I am, you will probably find things to keep you interested through the movie, but for everyone else, it isn't really worth checking out.