Tag Archive: Japanese movie

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Jmovie: Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs Dai-Shocker

March 29th, 2010 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

Title: Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker
Release date: 8/8/09
Genre: Tokusatsu
Cast: Masahiro Inoue, Kanna Mori, Ryouta Murai, Moe Arai, Ryuichi Oura
Plot: The worlds are merging together, destroying each other. Only by killing all of the Riders from all of the various worlds can one world be saved. Or is that the real solution?
What is good: Watching the Kamen Riders fight was interesting.
What is bad: Gackt’s cameo was awful.
Letter rating: B-
Overall: I’ve never watched Kamen Rider in any of its forms. As a matter of fact, the only reason I wanted to watch this was for the Gackt cameo. Unfortunately, the Gackt cameo was terrible. Despite not knowing anything about the series, the movie wasn’t too bad. I was able to keep up with the plot, for the most part, and it was kinda cool to see all the various incarnations of the Rider. The main downside was that the movie was only 66 minutes so it was more like a special episode then a full-length movie. They probably could have spent a little more time fleshing out some things or let the battles go on a little bit longer. As a whole, I had a decent time watching it.

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Favorite Friday

March 26th, 2010 / Tags: , , , , / categories: Favorite Friday /

Because I still have Yankumi on the brain. I am giving you the trailer for the Gokusen movie. YAY!

As a side note, there’s a motorcycle gang in the trailer. I wonder if Japan has specialized motorcycle accident lawyers. Then again, it seems to be pretty rare for vehicle accidents to go to court there. I shall use my Google-Fu and find out!

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Jmovie review: Kagen no Tsuki

March 15th, 2010 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

Title: Kagen no Tsuki
Also known as: Last Quarter
Release date: 2004
Genre: Supernatural romance
Cast: Kuriyama Chiaki, Narimiya Hiroki, Kurokawa Tomoka, Ochiai Motoki, Hyde
Plot: As Mizuki (Kuriyama) turns 19, she finds out that her boyfriend, Tomoki (Narimiya), has been cheating on her. Running away from her heartache, she comes upon an abandoned estate. Inside she finds a mysterious guitar player named Adam (Hyde), who claims to know her. During the last quarter of the moon, Adam tells Mizuki that he must leave. Desperate to stay with him, Mizuki races to find him, only to be hit by a car. Two schoolchildren (Kurokawa and Ochiai) soon find the estate with a mysterious girl who cannot leave. What is the connection between the house, Adam, and Mizuki?
What is good: Kuriyama is a very good actress.
What is bad: The story dragged a lot.
Letter rating: C
Overall: I mostly rented this movie because Hyde is in it. I didn’t realize that both Kuriyama and Narimiya were in it as well. Despite all of the talent in the film, it was still very difficult to watch. The pacing was extremely slow. It takes a long time for the characters to come to relatively easy conclusions and some things that don’t need to explained are over explained. If you are a fan of the actors, it’s a nice way to spend a couple of hours. Otherwise, feel free to overlook this without a second thought.

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JDorama review: Kisarazu Cat’s Eye: The Movie

February 16th, 2010 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

Title: Kisarazu Cat’s Eye: The Movie
Release date: 11/2003
Genre: Comedy
Cast: Okada Junichi, Sakurai Sho, Okada Yoshinori, Sato Ryuta, Tsukamoto Takashi
Plot: Bussan (Junichi) is dying. His doctors continually tell him that he has six months left to live. Instead of being depressed, he lives life normally with his friends.
What is good: There are some very funny moments.
What is bad: The beginning of the movie is rather confusing.
Letter rating: C+
Overall: I should start out by confessing that I have not watched the 9-episode drama that goes with the movie. This was just something I plucked off of Netflix without any expectations. As such, I was terribly confused for the first 45 minutes. Perhaps, if I was familiar with the series, I might have understood what was going on. Either way, the movie really picks up in the last half of the film. Once you can piece everything together and see how each event relates to other events, the movie is quite fun! I actually found myself staying up way past my bedtime just to find out how it ends. (I rarely stay up past my bedtime. I like sleep.) Now I need to track down the series so I can see what other adventurous mishaps this gang gets into!

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Jmovie review: Lupin III: Strange Psycho-Kinetic Strategy

January 4th, 2010 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

Lupin

Title: Lupin III: Strange Psycho-Kinetic Strategy
Release date: 1974
Genre: Action Comedy
Cast: Yuuki Meguro, Hideko Ezaki, Kunio Tanaka, Shirou Itou
Plot: Hijinks ensue when Lupin (Meguro), the world’s greatest thief, meets Fujiko (Ezaki), a female thief.
What is good: Lupin versus Zenigata (Itou) is always funny.
What is bad: Too much slapstick.
Letter rating: D+
Overall: For some reason, when I added this to my Netflix queue, I thought it was an animated version of Lupin. I was a little surprised when I popped in the disc to see a live action version instead. Regardless, it’s still Lupin and I always enjoy Lupin movies. Well, now I can change that line of thought. Where Lupin tends to be silly, he always has a serious side. This version failed to show his serious side. We saw “Funny Lupin,” “Horny Lupin,” a little tiny bit of “Clever Lupin,” but never once was there “Serious Lupin.” In my opinion, this is where the movie failed. They relied way too much on “Funny Lupin” to carry the movie. Perhaps this would have been satisfactory in 1974, but it just doesn’t stand the test of time.

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JDorama review: L: Change the WorLd

November 3rd, 2009 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

L-change

Title: L: Change the WorLd
Release date: 2/9/08
Genre: Supernatural, Detective
Cast: Matsuyama Kenichi, Fukuda Narushi, Fukuda Mayuko, Kudoh Youki
Plot: During the final 23 days of his life, L takes the time to solve one more case. This one involves a bio-terrorist group intent on killing most of the Earth’s population with a virus.
What is good: Matsuyama is as good as ever!
What is bad: Well…I fell asleep…that can’t be a good thing, right?
Letter rating: C
Overall: I really wanted to like this sort-of sequel to Death Note. Like many others, L is one of my favorite characters. Unfortunately, this case seems to be a pretty big waste of his talents. The only reason L seems to be involved in this case is because people just randomly send things (and people) to him. As much as I wanted to watch the movie, I did fall asleep because it was so dull. L deserved a better ending than this.

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Jdorama review: Ping Pong

August 19th, 2009 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

pingpong

Title: Ping Pong
Release date: 7/20/02
Genre: Sports comedy
Cast: Kubozuka Yosuke, Arata, Sam Lee, Nakamura Shido, Okura Koji, Takenaka Naoto, Natsuki Mari
Plot: Peco (Kubozuka), a really good table tennis player, meets his match against a player from China (Lee), but there is another talented player Peco must face. Will he meet the challenge or give up his lifelong dream of being the world’s best table tennis player?
What is good: Kubozuka Yosuke once again pulls off an amazing character.
What is bad: I can’t think of anything that really detracts from the movie.
Letter rating: A
Overall: I really love Kubozuka’s acting and his skills shine here. The rest of the cast supports him well, even though I did find myself giggling a little bit about all the drama that takes place around ping pong. This is definitely a movie that every jdorama lover should watch at least once.

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JDorama review: Kamikaze Girls

June 22nd, 2009 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

shimotsumamonogatari

Title: Shimotsuma Monogatari
Also known as: Kamikaze Girls
Release date: 2004
Genre: Slice of life
Cast: Fukada Kyoko, Anna Tsuchiya
Plot: Momoko (Fukada) is a Lolita girl. Ichiko (Tsuchiya) is a delinquent. This is the story of their friendship.
What is good: The cinematography is beautiful.
What is bad: Tsuchicya’s acting seems very forced and fake.
Letter rating: C
Overall: As a general rule, I’m excited to see live action Japanese movies get licensed in the United States. Unfortunately, for every Death Note, there’s a Kamikaze Girls. The movie isn’t completely awful. I did manage to get through it entirely. However, it is dragged out and dull. While you would like the characters to better themselves, you don’t really care about them and, for the most part, you’d prefer if they just left each other alone for once. The ending is very sweet…it just seems to take forever to get there.

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Jmovie review: Honey & Clover

December 2nd, 2007 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

honeyclover.jpg

Title: Honey & Clover
Release date: 7/22/06
Genre: Romance, Slice of Life
Cast: Sakurai Sho, Aoi Yuu, Seki Megumi, Kase Ryo, Iseya Yusuke
Plot: A group of art students try to make sense of life and love.
What is good: The acting isn’t terrible.
What is bad: It takes a long time for the movie to get even vaguely intersting.
Letter rating: C-
Overall: I haven’t read the manga that this movie is based on but I have seen the anime adaptation, which I thought was mind-numbingly boring. The movie is pretty much the same. There were some minor changes from the anime version. I chalk this up to the fact that the movie is only about 2 hours long while the anime ran for 26 half-hour episodes. Either way, I’m guessing the source material is as boring as the two adaptations. We aren’t given any real reason to care about these characters or why we should be pulling for them to be successful in their lives. When the characters begin to get interesting, they all stop talking to each other, tossing us back to not caring anymore. This much be fairly popular in Japan since there will be a drama series starting next year. I can only hope that the drama will give a little more oomph to the characters.

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Jmovie review: Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru

October 13th, 2007 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: JDorama Reviews /

Title: Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru
Also known as: I’m in love with my little sister
Release date: 1/20/07
Genre: Romantic Drama
Cast: Matsumoto Jun, Eikura Nana, Yuuta Hiraoka, Komatsu Ayaka
Plot: Yori (Matsumoto Jun) is in love with his twin sister, Iku (Eikura Nana). He tries to forget Iku by sleeping with his classmate Tomoka. Now the twins need to choose between their forbidden love and a normal life.
What is good: The dialog isn’t too bad.
What is bad: The extraordinarily long dramatic pauses.
Overall rating: C-
Overall: I knew little about this movie when I turned it on. I knew it was about incest between twins and that it starred MatsuJun and Komatsu Ayaka so I expected a decent dramatic movie. Sadly, I was mistaken. This movie is filled with extremely long dramatic pauses. All of the characters take a good 5 – 7 minutes to spit out one line of what they want to say to each other. Eikura wasn’t very interesting as Iku but that may be a problem with the character and not the actress. I suppose if you are a fan of MatsuJun, you’ll want to watch this movie. Just don’t expect anything wonderful from it.


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