Plam
Bulgaria
It really turned out to be a better movie than I've ever thought could come out of the manga with the same name. And I really can't believe I'm saying this, but I think this movie has managed to become one of my most favorite psychological horrors to date. (And I don't usually like such movies...)
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Sad truth is that the final product shows some signs that the staff involved at least tried to do something plausible. (When you have a story so impossible to portray you change it, okay. I get that.) But the way they tried to do it is just - laughable, or to say it simply it is like someone said - hey, let's just strip the story of everything that makes it genuine, put a few new characters, and take away all of the personality the few original characters have. The result - yet another love triangle story that just so happens to take place in a world full of man-eating creatures. (Yeah. This sentence basically summaries the whole movie. I am not kidding.)
And yeah, the staff really did try to create something plausible, because the movie is beautiful. The special effects are well done. The titans are almost believable, but to be honest the impact they could have made was totally lost because the characters in the story were the exact opposite. I could talk about how emotionless and blank-faced all of the cast is for hours, but I will limit myself only to Miura Haruma, who by the way I absolutely love, but even he (and how good he looks in the uniform) can't save this movie. In fact I think this is his worst role ever. Most of the time his Eren is just standing there looking hurt or blank-faced without any apparent reason for that. Not to mention that he spent almost the whole movie running from the titans, not fighting them. When we include the fact that everyone around him did almost the same, I think you get the picture.
I gave it a chance. I tried to think of something good to say , but what is there to like in a movie that made me laugh almost hysterically because of how ridiculous it was. I am rating it with 4.0, because as I said the movie is beautifully filmed and some of the scenes are well choreographed, but when you take it as whole the beauty is just not enough. So, yeah. I tried to expect basically nothing, but if I say that this movie is even worse than my lowest expectations I will not be lying. In fact, Haruma or not, this is just one of the worst live-action adaptations I have ever seen. And not because it doesn't follow the original story. But because it takes on original, out-of-the-box concept and replaces it with something stereotypical. Which is sad in a way, because they could have done so much better.
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The story: Imagine the yakuza mentioned above, stuck in a high school crowded with full of themselves teenagers, and trying to act all innocent and friendly, while on the other hand wants to kick the butt of all his "classmates" and you have it. Nothing so much, really. In it's whole once again the main idea is to learn all the important aspects in life. What makes it nice is the presentation, and the comedy. Definitely the comedy, which believe me, is like nothing you've seen before.
The cast: Like it. Until a while ago I had difficulty imagining Nagase Tomoya as an actor, but he actually did a great job, so he has my compliments on his performance. You'll definitely fall in love with his dorky yakuza. Also, after having watched Kashii Yuu in some other roles, this is the first time I actually like her performance, so she is worth mentioning as well. Oh, and Kouki, he was cute and absolutely adorable as well.
The drama passes with high score for me, so my advice is to give it a try.
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The colors and the music are just amazing. Everything looks much more realistic than I thought it will be. The battle scenes were just breathtaking, without too much special effects, but still spectacular in kind of realistic way. The story is a nice mesh-up of the arcs at the begging of the manga (Thank God, they didn't try to cover the whole manga!). The characters were put up nicely and had some part in the story, not just being there, only for the fans to see them... Also the biggest surprise was that Sato is actually a pretty good Kenshin. Much more good than I would have ever given him credit for... After the first few scenes I found myself even liking him as Kenshin quite a lot... Still surprised at that!
Still... the movie gets a 9 from me, because I still don't like the rest of the cast, but as a whole this is one really good live-action, so Kenshin fan or not, I would definitely recommend it.
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