MOVIES

MOVIE REVIEWS [In Brief] . Nezu no Ban, A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth, Hannibal Rising

So my review queue has grown and grown, but due to work, classes, and a hefty amount of Wii playing, review publishing hasn’t been as frequent as I would have liked. Yet again, here are some brief reviews for your consideration.

Nezu no Ban (aka: A Hardest Night!!)
Master rokudo artist (to keep it simple, and this review short, I’ll just say “dirty storyteller”) Shomantei lies in his hospital deathbed. His disciples gather round as he whispers his dying wish….to see a woman’s “pussy”. Being a practitioner of dirty tales, this seems a somewhat fitting request, and the disciples saddle one of their own with the task of bringing in his young and pretty wife for wish fulfillment. To make a long story short, the request is granted. When asked by his understudies how he liked it, Shomantei replies, “You idiots. I said I wanted to see ‘the sea,’” and promptly dies; the shock and excitement possibly inducing his heart attack. And so starts Nezu no Ban, a celebration of life and all its raunchy bits, as viewed through a series of wakes and dirty remembrances, bound to make you smile as much as they make you blush.

While an adaptation of a novel by Ramo Nakajima, the film walks a fine line with its humor. With less skilled performers many of the jokes would come across flat or completely lame. In fact, more than a few I thought about relating here, but the summaries I devised robbed the jokes of any laughs. But the point is, director Masahiko Tsugawa and his ensemble cast do pull it off, and quite nicely. One technique worth noting is that Tsugawa ensured that whenever characters were in frame, they would not be blocked by anyone else in frame. You get to see all important actors at all times, which further ensures an audience connection with everyone involved. Nezu no Ban may be a “dirty” film, but its heart is in the right place. Furthermore, I don’t remember a wake ever being this fun. It’s a very pleasant film. With Junko Fuji, Takashi Sasano, Yoshino Kimura, and Ittoku Kishibe (Survive Style 5+).

A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth
“Where’s the romanticism?,” the screen prompts with the opening of A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth. You see, the world today is a very cynical place, filled with tedium and selfishness — nothing close to excitement. To combat this problem a gang has been formed. A master speaker, a master pickpocket, a human lie detector, and a human clock. They band together under the intention of performing romantic crimes, in order to give the people of earth hope. And they do quite well. Their amicable bank robberies often leave bank employees and patrons bowing acknowledgement and smiling. That is, until the cheerful gang themselves are robbed.

A Cheerful Gang is an exceedingly bright and cheerful film. It’s not a deep film, and it’s certainly not intended to be a serious caper film. If you’re watching it with that in mind, you’re bound to be disappointed. It’s just…fun. The gang members are dressed in the brightest of primary colored rockstar patterns, car chases feature Lupin style hopping/bendy cars, and much of the comedy is of the hyperreal anime variety. In fact, it has an energy not unlike the live action Cutie Honey. Furthermore, its good nature is completely infectious. Watching it, even after a long work week, inadequate sleep, and an admittedly cranky disposition, I found I had the biggest smile on my face. A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth is great fun, and a joy to watch. If you can find it, see it. With Arata Furuta, Rosa Kato, Houka Kinoshita, Tomohiro Miura and Yuichiro Nakayama.

Hannibal Rising
Okay, quick tonal shift here. Hannibal Rising has been getting a bad rap from critics, but I think most of these critics aren’t readers of Thomas Harris. You see, Hannibal Rising marks the first occurrence of Thomas Harris being given creative control in terms of an adaptation of one of his novels. The foundation for Hannibal Rising was actually laid in Hannibal, with lengthy flashbacks regarding Hannibal’s relationship with his young sister Misha, and her eventual death as a child at the hands of Russian looters during World War II. If you’ve not read Hannibal, I’ll leave it at that, for the events depicted in those flashbacks serve as the “twists” in Hannibal Rising. All of this material and more were eschewed in the David Mamet adaptation of Harris’ previous Lecter novel, but now Harris has had the chance to exercise the same course correction he made with his book on screen.

This time around, Hannibal is not the monster, but the merciless anti-hero. You see, Hannibal’s distaste for humans (not their flesh), stems from his intolerance of predjudice, ignorance, and all around rudeness (he’d have his work cut out for him here in the uber-rude, politely predjudiced Silicon Valley). He’s the ultimate culture warrior, if you will. But Hannibal also has the objective of killing the murderers of his sister. Again, this was all explored in Hannibal, but not allowed to see the light of the cinema screen. And, when evaluated with that in mind, it’s really not that bad. It’s certainly better than Rattner’s Red Dragon or Scott’s Hannibal. There are certainly a few bits of silliness, but none are as absurd as described on other sites (ie: just because Hannibal is shown to undergo martial arts training, doesn’t mean he’s steeping himself in Bushido).

As far as performances are concerned, Gaspard Ulliel does a decent job as Hannibal. He’s not great, but he’s servicable. Li Gong does her Li Gong thing as Lady Murasaki (the name a reference to the world’s first novelist, the author of The Tale of Genji), but I must admit that her English is getting much better. All in all, Hannibal Rising is a flawed film, but more in line with Harris’ previous intentions for the character. If you have an open mind, check it out.

About the Author

Chris Nelson has been a film fanatic since age six. A former film and English major, he is now a Software Engineer and contract Technical Writer living in the Silicon Valley.