My August Purchase

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Okay, it's time to sum up my anime purchase for the month.

Region 4
Mahoromatic Boxset
Gundam Wing Operation One

Region 1
Sakura Wars OVA
Urusei Yatsura Movie 2 Beautiful Dreamer

Plus some Manga as well.

Everything is off eBay. Except for Mahoromatic, everything else is second hand. I don't mind at all. You can tell by the place I got them from. They are generally in good condition, and for a bargin price, it's everything that I wish for.

The only bad thing is that they will be in my backlog of things to watch. I don't have the time to watch them right now.

Check out this thread, the people there collect Anime like mad. It's amazing how many DVDs, and especially Anime DVDs, that these people have. I'm still a long way off. But I'm working on it.

Third Japanese Lesson... Missed.

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Well, it was Thursday that I supposed to have my Japanese lesson, I actually arrived at the building where it was held. But then something stopped me. My upset stomach. So instead of rushing to class, I rushed to toilet!

I didn't feel well at all, so I went home instead. Later that night, I fell victim to flu (not the chicken variant) and had to stay in bed for two days. Still feeling a little light-headed today, but I should be right for action next Thursday.

Japanese Lesson Number 2

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I had my second lesson in Japanese yesterday. Quite an interesting lesson. We learnt a bit more about our classmates, mainly where we are from. The highlight of the class was a game of "Guess Who", only this time, it was the person who sat in front knew the identity, and everyone else guessed who s/he was supposed to be. All conducted in Japanese, of course.

I don't know about others, but somehow, I felt like I was a 7 years old kid, learning through playing games. I suppose that's not far from the truth, though, given that our Japanese proficiency is probably worse than any 7 years old Japanese kid.

Chaos

REVIEW (J-Movie)

What it is about

The movie started as a couple left a restaurant after lunch. The woman left as the man paid the bill. Afterwards, he too left the restaurant only to find that the woman was gone already. Somewhat unconcerned, he went back to work. We then found out that he was a CEO of a company. Later on that day, the CEO received a phone call claiming that his wife has been kidnapped. The kidnapper demanded 30 million yen ransom, or else...

It was then that the audiences found out that the kidnapping was staged. The woman was called Saori and was actually the wife of the CEO. She staged her own kidnapping because of various reasons. The kidnapper was a handyman. Saori planned everything, and the handyman was hired to execute the job.

Soon after Saori settled into her friend's place which doubled as a hideout, the handyman left and called the CEO's sister and demanded five million yen ransom. So instead of going to meet with the CEO who had the police with him, he snatched the five million yen from his sister who didn't have the cops with her.

After the successful 'transaction', the handyman went back to the apartment where Saori was 'held'. Panic ensued as he found that Saori was strangled to dead! One phone call from the killer later, the handyman quickly dumped the body and went back home.

The next day, he was sitting at the lights when a Saori look alike crossed the street. Who was her? Why was she alive? If Saori was alive, then who was dead?

What I think of it

While this movie is not the first one to feature a staged kidnapping, this is also not the first one to have some dead corpses lying around, waiting to be buried. The stage kidnapping is really a gimme, the audience can tell pretty much straight away.

There are several twists in this movie, the first one being the stage kidnapping. However, the real meat of the plot twist begins as the kidnapping turned into murder, and the handyman was framed for it. It is then that the handyman embarked on a journey to find out who is behind the murder.

The plot is executed as smooth as it could be, and is able to keep the viewers entertained for the most part. It took a while to stage the kidnapping, at the halfway mark, Saori is dead. By the three-quarter mark, the true murderer and the intent are revealed. And after that, it is payback time.

The plot actually moves backwards in time on several occasions, and could be a little hard to follow if the viewers don't watch it carefully.

Music is done by Kawai Kenji, the master behind Ring, Ring 2, and anime like Ghost in the Shell and the Patlabor series.

The characters are simple, there is the CEO, the wife and the handyman. The wife's real love interest is really murky at times, sometimes she seems to love the CEO, but sometimes, she seems to be in the arms of the handyman.

A problem that I have is the way the handyman was portrayed. He is a handyman, he can fix broken pipes, TVs, and whatnots, but I highly doubt that he can stage a kidnapping. He seems to know a lot about the art, as if he had done it many times before. It's not everyday that someone called a handyman and asked to be kidnapped, you know.

Overall

This movie actually reminded me of another similar movie, G@me. G@me, in my opinion, is better executed than this.

This movie, when you know the whole thing, is actually quite simple. The twists are not easily predictable, but not unexpected. For the first half of it, you have to really pay attention to the plot to work out the story, but even if you don't, all will be revealed later on.

The characters are somewhat unbelievable, especially the "know-all" handyman, but overall, they are okay and drives the story to its ultimate conclusion.

Score (out of 10)

Music: 8
Setting: 6
Character: 6
Plot: 7

Overall: 6

Some interesting websites

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Just some interesting websites that I came across.

Studio Ghibli Street Fighter featuring Studio Ghibli characters. Too bad you can't really fight.

Kelvin Tan's Photo Galleries at pbase.com has some of the coolest photo shot of Gundam models as well as other models and figurines.

My first Japanese lesson in 10 years

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Ten years after my last formal lesson in Japanese, I have found myself once again stepping into the wonderful world of the Japanese language. While I can pick up some Japanese words when watching Anime and Drama, I've decided that it is time for me to take it up seriously and properly again.

So with that in mind, I attended my first class last night. Being the first class, the sensei asked everyone - 17 of us in all - why we wanted to study Japanese. All of us have different reasons, but the interesting reason was to understand Anime without subtitles. That would have been my reason too, had I been the last one to introduce myself. But given that I was one of the first few to do so, I thought I should give them the "standard" response, you know, "broaden my language skill", that sort of shit. I bet no-one believed me when I said it.

It's like in a job interview, "why do you want to work for us?", the truth would have been "because I have no choice", but the answer you give would be "because I'm really interested in your company" and then give them your fakest smile.

Anyway, one of the girls said she wanted to learn some Japanese before she ventures to Japan to teach English next year. A valid reason, indeed. Actually, teaching English in Japan is one of those things that I wanted to do. But with my other commitment at the moment, that's not going to happen for some time to come.

Old Boy

REVIEW (K-movie)

What it is about

On his daughter's third birthday, Oh Daesu was abducted and locked up for 15 years. He didn't know who, he didn't know why. During the 15 years that he was imprisoned, he was set up for his wife's murder. But that's besides the point.

After the first couple of years, Daesu stopped wondering why he was imprisoned and started planning his escape. After years of hard labour, he finally made contact with the outside world by producing a small hole in the wall. One more month, and he would be able to dig his way out. Just when he thought he could escape, he was suddenly released.

On his first night, he came across a woman by the name of Mido. She was a sushi maker at the restaurant that Daesu dined in. After Daesu came down with influenza, Mido took him home.

Daesu's first task after he recovered was to find out who locked him up and take revenge. One thing led to another, eventually he found out who. Just as he was about to kill him, curiosity got the better of him. Daesu now wanted to find out why he was imprisoned. Killing his imprisoner will never find out the truth. He later found out that he and his imprisoner were from the same school. Upon arriving at his old school, Daesu realised a big secret. To complicate matters further, Mido was somehow related to it all.

Who was Daesu's imprisoner? Why was he locked up? What would he do now that he found out why?

What I think of it

Visually, it is a gruesome movie. Eating life octopus, pulling teeth out with a hammer, tongue cutting are the norm. The movie is definitely not for the faint hearted. It's violent. Very violent.

The plot is a twist with a twist. The first part of the movie concentrates on 'who', the second part deals with 'why'. The story is told like a detective story. The audiences don't get the know what the main character doesn't know. It keeps the viewers guessing until the end. And that's the strength of this movie. It keeps the audience hooked.

There are movies that build up the so much only to be let down by the ending. This movie is different. I would never thought of such an ending even after the big secret is revealed. To this end, the director did well in hiding the true ending.

The camera angle is refreshing, to say the least. Rather than setting the camera down to look from behind the character in a narrow corridor, the director chose to pick up the action from the cross-section of the corridor, such that the scene unfolds scrolling from left to right, much like a video game.

This movie is all about revenge. On the surface, it looks like to be Daesu's revenge on his imprisoner. But looking beyond that, it is actually his imprisoner who is seeking the revenge. A long time ago, Daesu's imprisoner has already been planning it. And to have the patience to carry out his plan over such a long time, such is the hatred towards one person.

Overall

This movie has violence, sex and gore. Pretty much everything an R-rated movie has. As a film, it has achieved many great things on many levels, especially with the live octopus (it's either that, or a very real-life like mechanical octapus). Watch it for the way in which the plot is carefully executed. It's a clever twist, but a disturbing plot.

To comment about this movie in one sentence, only a twist-minded person could write a twist story like this.

Score (out of 10)

Music: 6
Setting: 5
Character: 6
Plot: 7

Overall: 7

Just watching Gasaraki

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After a long time trying to acquire this title, I've finally got hold of it a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I know, I'm slow, but hey, at least it's in my possession now.

I didn't start watching it until Saturday. And I must say, I'm enjoying it at the moment. I'm half way through right now, and things are getting interesting.

The Kugai (Gasaraki?) looks like an Evangelion, if you ask me. And the Sword of Seven Blades looks like the one in the game Dark Cloud - The Seven Branch Sword used by Monica. They are one and the same.

Anyway, so far, it's a very political anime. And I like what I see.