Poor adaption of a FKMT manga? Not on my watch!
I've been watching way too many movies lately (and getting a lot of crocheting done! So many hats...), so it's about time for another movie post.
Kafuu wo Machiwabite (Waiting for Good News/Waiting for Happiness): I've always felt kinda ehhh about Tamayama Tetsuji, so I wanted to try out a movie starring him. I don't know... it wasn't bad, but I wasn't all that impressed. It felt like it was a bit too laid back with its pacing to pull off the emotional impact it was shooting for, and the acting was overall a bit sloppy. But there was a dog, and omg what a cute dog! (Somehow I have become a sucker for black labs. This is all my mom's fault.)
Tooku no Sora ni Kieta (Into the Faraway Sky): Ahh, Kamiki Ryunosuke! He is really just so great, you know. And was he ever great in this movie~ Ohgo Suzuka was also really good, I think I like her quite a bit. The movie itself was pretty good, though a definite step down from 'awesome'. It had a kind of constant underlying sense of humour that was somewhere between bawdy and outright crude, which was kind of at odds with its themes. It didn't break it, but it was enough to make me think it would've been better if it'd done without.
Koikyokusei: I'll be blunt and just say I don't like Toda Erika, but I wanted to give her a chance... and walked straight into yet another fatal illness love story. DAMN YOU, TODA ERIKA. Her acting was pretty bad, too, but to be fair so was Kato Kazuki's. Not sure what was going on there. The whole movie was pretty much a clusterfuck of fail, except for Wakaba Ryuya. I kind of wondered if he was leaning a bit too far toward Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but he was quite endearing and since the insufferable leads were busy sucking face and whining in turns I figured that was all that mattered. Shit, I really hated this movie... so I decided no more Toda Erika flicks for me, except that's a lie because then I watched
Tea Fight: Shut up, don't judge. I've been wanting to watch this movie for so long. It was actually completely amazing! I was expecting something cheesy, like Ninja Assassin but with tea, but it was actually... hmm, it's hard to explain why it's good, but it took everything seriously without getting dramatic about it (well, maybe a little dramatic, but just enough to make it visually interesting) and it was just overall really nice to watch. Plus, Hosoda Yoshihiko's face when he realized his romantic rival was Vic Chou, lol I loved it. I want to watch this movie a hundred times.
Kaiji: I did my damnedest not to judge too harshly because I'm a big ol' fan of the source material, but it was a kind of shaky adaption that turned into a clusterfuck of facepalming at the end. The big thing about Kaiji, the character, is that he's kind of whiny and cries a lot, but in a way that inspires sympathy and makes you want to cheer for him. When Fujiwara Tatsuya gets whiny and sobby, I just want him to shut the hell up. God, so annoying. They tried to cram too much into one movie so the gambles didn't have the impact they were supposed to, and I didn't mind that they genderswitched Endo but they totally weakened her character by making her the stock sympathetic woman. Having a vagina doesn't automatically make someone a good person! Matsuyama Kenichi was really good as Sahara, though... but it just isn't Kaiji if Kaiji ends the E-Card gamble with both his ears still attached! (Seriously, that was the last straw for me.) =/
Kamui Gaiden: Matsuken's role in Kaiji made me want to watch him in something else, so why not him as a ninja? The plot was pretty okay, the acting was all-around good, the characters were interesting, and omg the CG was so bad. The CG water. CG sharks. The terrible CG deer. It looked like claymation at some points. So that was terrible, but terrible in a hilariously entertaining way. I found, though, that it didn't really feel like a Kudo Kankuro flick, except Matsuken spends a good chunk of time in nothing but a fundoshi. So. There's a selling point, I guess.
Shindou (Prodigy): lol I wanted to watch another Matsuken movie, so sue me. Ehhh it was okay but I wasn't really wowed. No tea, no ninja, just Matsuken and Narumi Riko and pianos. Still, I liked the dynamic between their characters, a kind of unconventional intergenerational co-ed friendship you don't really see a lot. Basically it's a movie I'd recommend, but probably wouldn't bother to watch twice. I guess it didn't make much of an impression. Hmm.
Halfway: I'm not even sure why I decided to watch it since I went into it expecting an ultimately disappointing "bittersweetness of youth" movie (I was half expecting another fatal illness), but I'm glad I watched it because it's actually quite good! Having read a summary I was expecting a fairly typical slow-paced overwrought highly emotional angsty teen flick, but it's like the characters were given that option but instead opted to just be goofy and clever and offbeat and entertaining. The pacing was so good, too, very quick and frenetic in a way that didn't allow things to slide into a messy sobfest. Kitano Kie and Okada Masaki were really great, it makes me want to watch more of their movies. Actually I would really like if they were in something together again. They're a good combi.
For those keeping count at home, that's three movies with Matsuyama Kenichi, two with Ohgo Suzuka, two Toda Erika, and two Kagawa Teruyuki.
Kafuu wo Machiwabite (Waiting for Good News/Waiting for Happiness): I've always felt kinda ehhh about Tamayama Tetsuji, so I wanted to try out a movie starring him. I don't know... it wasn't bad, but I wasn't all that impressed. It felt like it was a bit too laid back with its pacing to pull off the emotional impact it was shooting for, and the acting was overall a bit sloppy. But there was a dog, and omg what a cute dog! (Somehow I have become a sucker for black labs. This is all my mom's fault.)
Tooku no Sora ni Kieta (Into the Faraway Sky): Ahh, Kamiki Ryunosuke! He is really just so great, you know. And was he ever great in this movie~ Ohgo Suzuka was also really good, I think I like her quite a bit. The movie itself was pretty good, though a definite step down from 'awesome'. It had a kind of constant underlying sense of humour that was somewhere between bawdy and outright crude, which was kind of at odds with its themes. It didn't break it, but it was enough to make me think it would've been better if it'd done without.
Koikyokusei: I'll be blunt and just say I don't like Toda Erika, but I wanted to give her a chance... and walked straight into yet another fatal illness love story. DAMN YOU, TODA ERIKA. Her acting was pretty bad, too, but to be fair so was Kato Kazuki's. Not sure what was going on there. The whole movie was pretty much a clusterfuck of fail, except for Wakaba Ryuya. I kind of wondered if he was leaning a bit too far toward Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but he was quite endearing and since the insufferable leads were busy sucking face and whining in turns I figured that was all that mattered. Shit, I really hated this movie... so I decided no more Toda Erika flicks for me, except that's a lie because then I watched
Tea Fight: Shut up, don't judge. I've been wanting to watch this movie for so long. It was actually completely amazing! I was expecting something cheesy, like Ninja Assassin but with tea, but it was actually... hmm, it's hard to explain why it's good, but it took everything seriously without getting dramatic about it (well, maybe a little dramatic, but just enough to make it visually interesting) and it was just overall really nice to watch. Plus, Hosoda Yoshihiko's face when he realized his romantic rival was Vic Chou, lol I loved it. I want to watch this movie a hundred times.
Kaiji: I did my damnedest not to judge too harshly because I'm a big ol' fan of the source material, but it was a kind of shaky adaption that turned into a clusterfuck of facepalming at the end. The big thing about Kaiji, the character, is that he's kind of whiny and cries a lot, but in a way that inspires sympathy and makes you want to cheer for him. When Fujiwara Tatsuya gets whiny and sobby, I just want him to shut the hell up. God, so annoying. They tried to cram too much into one movie so the gambles didn't have the impact they were supposed to, and I didn't mind that they genderswitched Endo but they totally weakened her character by making her the stock sympathetic woman. Having a vagina doesn't automatically make someone a good person! Matsuyama Kenichi was really good as Sahara, though... but it just isn't Kaiji if Kaiji ends the E-Card gamble with both his ears still attached! (Seriously, that was the last straw for me.) =/
Kamui Gaiden: Matsuken's role in Kaiji made me want to watch him in something else, so why not him as a ninja? The plot was pretty okay, the acting was all-around good, the characters were interesting, and omg the CG was so bad. The CG water. CG sharks. The terrible CG deer. It looked like claymation at some points. So that was terrible, but terrible in a hilariously entertaining way. I found, though, that it didn't really feel like a Kudo Kankuro flick, except Matsuken spends a good chunk of time in nothing but a fundoshi. So. There's a selling point, I guess.
Shindou (Prodigy): lol I wanted to watch another Matsuken movie, so sue me. Ehhh it was okay but I wasn't really wowed. No tea, no ninja, just Matsuken and Narumi Riko and pianos. Still, I liked the dynamic between their characters, a kind of unconventional intergenerational co-ed friendship you don't really see a lot. Basically it's a movie I'd recommend, but probably wouldn't bother to watch twice. I guess it didn't make much of an impression. Hmm.
Halfway: I'm not even sure why I decided to watch it since I went into it expecting an ultimately disappointing "bittersweetness of youth" movie (I was half expecting another fatal illness), but I'm glad I watched it because it's actually quite good! Having read a summary I was expecting a fairly typical slow-paced overwrought highly emotional angsty teen flick, but it's like the characters were given that option but instead opted to just be goofy and clever and offbeat and entertaining. The pacing was so good, too, very quick and frenetic in a way that didn't allow things to slide into a messy sobfest. Kitano Kie and Okada Masaki were really great, it makes me want to watch more of their movies. Actually I would really like if they were in something together again. They're a good combi.
For those keeping count at home, that's three movies with Matsuyama Kenichi, two with Ohgo Suzuka, two Toda Erika, and two Kagawa Teruyuki.