Jmoview review: Shoutai

Shoutai is the movie version of the  Kame WOWOW series that showed he could actually act if he had a good script. This time the star of the story is Yokohama Ryusei who was in The Journalist. Like the WOWOW series, Shoutai starts off with a prisoner escape except this one is a lot bloodier with more action with the main character Kaburagi stabbing his tongue whereas in the WOWOW one he just climed out the window at a public toilet.

Anyway, Shoutai is about a young man Kaburagi falsely imprisoned who escapes to prove his innocence. It is basically The Fugitive with a young man instead of a doctor. The first thing that really stood out to me was the disguise for Kaburagi as this labourer aka his first job after escaping was really, really bad. 

He looked almost comical, like someone purposely wearing a bad disguise whereas the WOWOW disguise was convincingly dirt and unkempt. The story was about Kaguragi helping out his fellow labourers with his knowledge of the law.

I was ready to hate on the movie for the first bad disguise and proclaim the WOWOW series victorious but I started enjoying the movie more and more. Yoshioka Riho is good as the editor at the magazine where Kaburagi finds work.

The actions scenes are much better than WOWOW with a higher budget of course. I really like the one shot where Kaburagi escapes from Yoshioka Riho's apartment by jumping from the balcony onto the top of a car, limping to a bridge and jumping down a river. It looked very good.

Yamada Takayuki is the stern faced Tommy Lee Jones character; the police officer chasing Kaburagi who starts to doubt Kaguragi is guilty. Yamada's performance is just OK and his role is nothing to write about. Kaburagi keeps moving from job to job trying and helping people who believe in his innocence.

The only thing missing from the movie is the one where Kaburagi infiltrates a religious organisation but everything else from the WOWOW series is there. The cinema was filled with female viewers and you could hear the sniffling during the strong ending.

I took a quick look at the WOWOW series again and the movie just looks so much better. The story is an excellent one about a convict trying to prove his innocence. I prefer Kame's acting for Kaburagi but everything else, the movie does a better job. Watchable, crowd pleasing movie. Watch the WOWOW series if you have not first.