Mushishi (2007)

The movie depicts a time were demons and humans co-exist and only the selected few humans can detect the demons which normal people perceive as ordinary bugs. That's where Ginko (Joe Odagiri) comes in. The story was excerpted from a manga, so for those who are familiar with the manga version they might be slightly disappointed since it was compressed into a 160+ minutes of live action movie. I only have a vague introduction of the manga, so the film-manga comparison didn't bother me much. Story wise, some would think that the pacing was a bit slow but for my two cents, I felt there was something more to those scenes than just the dialogue or the characters. Another plus factor is the visual effects. The colors were all in different hues, not much bright colors but in pastels and it was really beautiful to look at.

What made me watch it in the first place was Joe Odagiri as Ginko and Yu Aoi as Tanyu. Both actors are big names in the Japan entertainment industries and their acting was not subpar at all. They played their roles amazingly.

Music was in sync with the scenes but it was not that special. Although I would have to take note of the background music during a scene with Tanyu and her magical skills using long metal chopsticks. That scene was really brought out by the music, I think without the sound track that specific scene wouldn't have been as powerful as it seemed.

I re-watched segments of the film just for the sake of ogling on Joe Odagiri and his white hair. Not sure if you're interested in that, but if you are, then share the boat with me. It's worth re-watching.

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I watched this since I LOVE LOVE LOVED the anime. Enough so my husband goes "oh this is that travelling exorcist show you liked so much". Queue eye roll. the story is super compressed but that is to be expected, and as with any manga/anime/LA adaption the source material was better. That being said this was not a bad movie, the ending just kinda fell flat.

The cast was phenomenal with Odagiri Joe and Aoi Yu being the absolute high light of this movie. This is the third or forth work from Aoi Yu I have seen and her performances are quickly making her my favorite actress to watch.

Overall I would recommend this to people who like spirit shows or loved the anime enough to just fangirl over it being made decently into a LA.

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