Uzumasa Limelight

I effing love Uzumasa Limelight. It ticks all the right boxes of a feel good movie for me. I know every beat of the movie that is coming but its just oh, so enjoyable. Its as if the movie were made for me or something.

Uzumasa Limelight is the story of Kamiyama, an old man who specialises in being killed in old samurai movies and tv shows.

Unfortunately for him, times are changing. Chanbara shows are no longer popular and in order to appeal to the younger audience, talentos who are not concerned with authenticity are cast in the shows and cg swords are used.

Kamiyama finds work drying up. Being killed in chanbaras is a skill that is no longer valued while being an extra in other shows requires no acting at all and is unfulfilling.

This young girl Satsuki appears and wants to be an extra.

She seeks Kamiyama's help in sword fight training and becomes his pupil.

Satsuki finds success because of her skills and becomes famous. You can guess what the ending is going to be and its one hell of an exciting fight scene.

I love the casting of Uzumasa Limelight. Kamiyama is a real life kirareyaku in his wrinkled face emotes to an audience more than those old actors with plastic faces we see all the time.

I was surprised to find out Satsuki is a newcomer who is also a wushu champion! Hats of to the casting manager for going for the most important thing which is believably and she can act better than anyone from AKB48.

Cinematography is exquisitely beautiful.

Ultimately what makes Uzumasa Limelight work so well is not just that its a wonderfully executed feel good movie but that you can feel the love for chanbara throughout the movie. Must absolutely watch movie.

Kiseki no Hito Eps 4-8

Kiseki no Hito is just a visual delight to look at.

Jdoramas are a visual and audio medium and often times, the camera seems more concerned with capturing and idoru's face rather than the beauty of the moment.

The way the camera is positioned is almost as much part of the storytelling is the script and the acting.

I watched Kiseki no Hito just thinking about screencapping every scene.

Looking for beautiful screenshots in Kiseki no Hito is so easy that it should be illegal.

The show definitely would not have worked without Aso Kumiko's acting.

I am glad her character is not extreme anime level tsundere.

My big problem with Kiseki no Hito is whether it deserves the 'must watch' label.

The acting, music and visuals are all great.

In the feel good disability genre which used to be popular but has been usurped by the crying porn fatal illness genre, Kiseki no Hito is near the top.

However, I have this feeling that there is something missing in the storyline to push it to must watch level for me.

Kiseki no Hito just stands on the border of 'must watch' for me and is highly recommended.

Kamogawa Shokudo Eps 1-3

It seems like the jdorama trend now is to add food to any genre and in Kamogawa Shokudo's case, its the detective genre or more specifically investigating the past of people seeking to taste a dish they once had.

The good things about Kamogawa Shokudo are that its a laid back food show to make you very hungry and that it looks good unlike Saigo no Restaurant, which is coincidentally another NHK show.

The bad thing is that the concept of investigating someone's past and recreating food with a touching ending does not leave much wiggle room for the stories.

Its always going to be some contrived situation where some sort of misunderstanding/ignorance which gets revealed after the investigation so we can get a food + waterworks scene at the end.

The three episodes have been very bland and I do not foresee the episodes getting any better. I have been wrong before (see Juuhan Shuttai!) but I give Kamogawa Shokudo a meh.

Saigo no Restaurant Eps 1-6

When bframe told me that Fukuda Mayuko was in Saigo no Restaurant, I knew I had to check it out. I can't even remember the last time I saw her and now she is in a dorama with pigtails and a maid outfit!!!!! If you have no idea who she is, watch the Byakuyakou dorama

Anyway, Saigo no Restaurant set in this restaurant where business is not doing well and the chef likes to run away from problems. One by one, famous people start being transported to restaurant right before their death and the chef has to fulfill their request and give them their last meal.

Saigo no Restaurant wasn't that entertaining as its more like a light historical lesson with food thrown into it. I planned only watch until episode 4 for Trendl Reina's Joan of Arc but luckily her character stayed on in the show.

Her character is funny because she thinks of the head chef as good and there are a lot of jokes you can make about her faith especially with all the technology we have today. Unfortunately, there are not too many of them.

The main parts about linking the food requests to the famous people doesn't really work for me but at least since the episodes are only 30 minutes, its tolerable. For example, Cleopatra's request was for a dish equivalent to her pearl. So when she rejected the first ice cream they gave her, the chef made her eat something very hot first before serving the same ice cream to make it taste better.

Sad to say Mayuko doesn't have much to do. Its the type of role that's usually left to a gravure idol.

Better to give a small, thankless role to someone who can act than someone who can't.

I'm wondering why the role wasn't given to an idol for ratings purposes but my guess is Mayuko gets to do more than look cute later on.

I'm on this bus as long as Reina is in the show though the preview for the next episode looks like she might be leaving. :(

Saigo no Restaurant is a meh light historical food fluff that is not as funny as it should be. Don't waste your time unless you like the screencaps.

Dear Doctor movie review

After watching Sway and talking to a friend about it, I was recommended Nishikawa Miwa's other movie Dear Doctor. While Sway's twist didn't work for me, she did direct Dreams for Sale/Yume uru Futari which I love.

Dear Doctor is about a doctor who works in the country, played by rakugo actor Tsurube Shofukutei and Eita is the intern who is doing work placement at the village. The movie begins with the disappearance of the doctor and through flashbacks we slowly see the build up to his disappearance and the secret of this country town.

So the big secret is that the doctor is fake with only the village chief, the experienced nurse and the medical salesman being in on it. I don't consider this a spoiler because Dear Doctor is about how this fake doctor is so crucial to the village. How its less that the villagers need his medical skills and more that they need someone to turn to. It is actually better to know it beforehand so you can enjoy all the knowing/worried glances and facial expressions.

I love the scene in the beginning where this old person is dying and the fake doctor was relieved the old man died so he didn't have to do the intubation and the daughter in law was relieved she no longer had to look after him.

Dear Doctor is about how being a doctor is more than just diagnosing and prescribing medication especially in a rural town where everyone is living far away from each other. One of the police officers said in the end, the villagers were more likely to kill them to keep their doctor. The fake doctor started doing this for money but being put on a pedestal and the heavy responsibilities forced him to try his best. As Eita's character says in the movie, he's glad he finally met a real doctor, not someone like his father who only thinks about business management.


I have to say its wonderfully acted but the pacing was very slow. After watching I thought it was an ok movie but it didn't do anything for me. Then I started thinking about the characters and their motivations and what what they meant and slowly I began to think a lot about the movie.

Dear Doctor is a movie where a lot of things aren't explained. The story on the face of it is very simple it says a lot of interesting about rural and urban life which Sway/Yureru also dealt with. I really recommend it if you're interested in a not explain too much movie. The only place you can get this movie is avistaz.

5 ways Juhan Shuttai! Eps 3-7 got better

1) Kokoro the obnoxiously genki, overacting asadora main character becomes more of the main supporting character.

2) The supporting character take turns being the main character instead.

3) Usually in jdoramas, its the super idealistic character who changes each character's viewpoint per episode or reminds them of what they used to believe in etc but in Juhan Shuttai its the individual characters themselves that solve their own problems and Kokoro does do it for them or lecture them into submission. The best way to describe it is that the world doesn't revolve around the main character but rather Kokoro is the POV character for the audience to experience this world.

4) I love the story about the two aspiring mangakas, one a talented BL doujinshi artist who can draw beautiful pictures but has problems with names and one who has crappy art but has the talent in doing names. Its the type of blood sweat and tears that the Bakuman movie did not have time to do.

5) Yasui the crusher. I was watching his episode thinking what he is saying is not wrong although he is sort of portrayed as the bad guy. I love that its not a story about Kokoro reminding him about his ideals but its a story about Kokoro realising why Yasui does what he does.

SUMMARY

I am bloody glad I stuck around past episode 2. My only complaint is way overuse of the stirring music everytime someone says something cool or emotional. Juhan Shuttai! is not the first jdorama to overuse it but music is suppose to enhance a scene, not be an overly manipulative signal. Overall, Juhan Shuttai! has gotten pretty good. Very watchable for me.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress Eps 1-8

WHAT  IS IT?

Attack on Titan with zombies mixed with Snowpiercer.

WHAT I LIKED

+ Beautiful detailed 90s inspired artwork. I'm sick of the moe round face style used by so many light novel adaptations. The characters look like 90s anime stereotypes including Sakura from Sakura Wars.

+ Hero is not a boring nice guy who solves problems by being nice.

+ Train driver chick has muscles. No I'm not a muscle fetish guy but too many strong chicks with slender arms in anime.

+ Its violent and like Attack on Titan people die.

+ Its a zombie anime on a train! As long as its about survival and people doing bad things without being too simplistic, it can't go wrong.

+ Did I mention it looks very pretty?

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

- Feels a lot like Attack on Titan and it takes a while for Kabaneri to find its own voice.

- Some of the adults are a bit simplistic. Like almost everyone on the train saw our hero saving the train but the anime makes it like everyone is against him being on the train. I get the Kabane fear but surely there must be more people not motivated purely by fear.

- Hero is a bit too 90s in that he loves shouting stuff without actually thinking it through.

SUMMARY

I'm not crazy about Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress but its got enough positive things for me to keep watching. Its not Berserk but its not Isekai Seikatsu either. At the very least, lots of pretty animation to look at. Watchable.

Yureru / Sway movie review

This has been on my to be watched list for so long and somehow I thought about watching it and did so. Odagiri Joe and Kagawa Teruyuki are brothers. Odagiri's gone to Tokyo and become a photographer while Kagawa is stuck back in their hometown working for their father at a petrol station.

So you have two brothers who are very different. One very hip and speaks his mind and the other is stoic and filial. Maki Yoko is Odagiri's old flame and works for his brother. The three of them go on a trip together and something happens and Kagawa is arrested.

The second half of the film is about the court case that flows from the incident and there are two things that make this movie fun: first is that we have no idea whether Kagawa is really guilty and secondly, the court case is basically a euphemism for the divide betwen city and rural life and Odagiris desire to run away from his country roots.

I do have big problem with this movie and that is with the big twist which relies on a wound which to me looked very old but was supposed to have been new. I have had my skin scratched badly before and it gets very red and takes time to heal.

Kagawa's scar looked very old and it seemed like he must have gotten the wound when he was a child or something. If the wound actually looked fresh instead of a scar, I don't think the reveal would work cause most people can put 2+2 together and wonder why the police weren't even concerned with it.

Good movie that ultimately stumbled over itself in the end. The devil is in the details and one important detail and undo a movie with good acting and tense moments. Meh.