Look at that cast! The Lady Joker duo, Moteki, Mitsushima Hikari, Miyazaki Aoi and Matsuda Ryuhei. The talent alone is crazy but Kita no Kanariatachi proves that at the end of the day talent can elevate a script but can't save it. The story is 20 years ago in a small town in Hokkaido, something happened and this teacher played by Yoshinaga Sayuri left the place.
One day, the cops come knocking at the teacher's door because one of the students got involved in a murder and she goes back and connects with each of the 5 students as the movie very slowly reveals what actually happened 20 years ago.
Sounds pretty interesting but the execution is lacking. Main reason is that whoever wrote this tried to force feed soap opera stories about each of the students while I was impatiently waiting for the main mystery to get going. Think your typical soap cliches and you'll find them here but it harms the pacing because of the lack of time. If this were a six episode series it might work but as a 2 hour movie, there is no time to build the characters and relationships up.
Its like the writer decided to do a soapie story every twenty minutes while dripping in bits of the main story. I was so close to stopping halfway. The only thing I enjoyed from this was the singing from the kids, especially some classic jpop songs. One of those tried too hard to be touching movies that it left me cold and hating it. I think Kita no Kanariatachi would have benefited from not having to spell things out so obviously in regards to the students' stories.
Where did you get the Jp sub?
ReplyDeleteIt came with the file at asiatorrents.
ReplyDelete