SYNOPSIS:
Ever since Tetsuya met Emi at the age of 10, he has wanted
to become a doctor to cure Emi's heart disease and marry her.
Just before their wedding, their childhood best friend Don,
a special man that has unique powers to see inside the hearts
of others and was jailed as an arsonist in a mountain fire
seven years ago which caused the death of Emi's father, has
escaped from prison and wanted to see Emi again...
Since Tetsuya is terrified that Don's reappearance in their
lives will destroy his nearly perfect and perhaps reading
both of his former friends' hearts, Don disappears again..
The three people encounter again in a fire, will their relationship
go back like what was used to?
MOVIE
REVIEW
Under
the Same Moon is one of the latest Japanese romance films
to be hitting our Dvd racks and like so many Japanese romance
films, it has the adolescence love story that being told in
flashback manners with death looming around and includes a
certain “mystical” element in the romance.
In short,
it’s been done to death and unlike Crying out love in
the center of the world or Be With You, the magical aspect
of the film was apparent but does not emote at all.
Given
that this is not a direct copy of either of the other two
films that were just mentioned, the way this film is structured
and the manner that it tries to tug viewer’s heartstring
was too obvious. In my opinion, a good love drama should seep
the feel of love for the characters slowly to the audience
and not forceful choke it down the audience’s throat
in the most predicable manner.
The first
thing that stood out from this Japanese sappy triangle love
drama would most definitely be Edison Chen. His character
is the most intriguing among the trio. Having a certain type
of psychic power, Edison Chen’s Don is able to read
people’s mind and convey those thoughts into beautiful
drawings. But his character was too much of a patsy who always
let people trample all over him till it’s hard to sympathize
with the troubles he gotten himself into.
His Japanese
counterparts, Yosuke Kubozuka and Meisa Kubori were essentially
good to look at but failed to leave a memorable mark for their
roles as the worried doctor and the dying girl.
The director,
Kenta Fukasaku who took over the directing reins of Battle
Royale 2 from his father, proves that he don’t have
the capabilities of drawing out right emotions from a potentially
good script. It’s either that or he does not know that
there’s something wrong with the structure of the script.
Character’s emotions either changes drastically in the
most unrealistic sense or borderline in flatline through out
the movie. It doesn’t help that the plot setup is painfully
predicable that it isn’t hard to figure who done what
and what’s in store for the characters.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Yosuke Kubozuka’s interview is a collage of
recordings of the behind the scenes interlacing with the lead
actor sharing his thoughts on making this film after 1 year
of absence. It goes on about what attracted him to this movie
and what made him chose the Tetsuya role over the Don role
that he was initially drawn to. This segment is fairly short
and doesn’t provide you with much information (such
as what caused him to leave the acting scene for a period
of time).
Bonus
Feature starts off with a Gala premiere of Under the Same
Moon in the Tokyo Film Festival and the introduction of the
cast and director. This feature went on with the three main
characters talking about their respective roles and their
thoughts on some key scenes in this movie. It also features
comments from the female audience who watched the premiere
and their reaction to this movie proved that this sentimental
film’s target audience does not include this cranky
cynical old reviewer.
The
rest of the Extra in this Dvd includes the Trailer for Under
the Same Moon, Star files provides the filmography and brief
write up for Yosuke Kubozuka, Edison Chen & Meisa Kubori
and Photo Gallery of selected moments of the film.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
This movie is presented in widescreen and comes with Dolby
Digital 5.1. There are English subtitles, Simplified Chinese
and Traditional Chinese subtitles.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Richard Lim Jr
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