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UNDER THE SAME MOON (Japan)

 ABOUT THE MOVIE


Genre:
Drama
Starring: Yosuke Kubozuka, Meisa Kuroki, Taro Yamamoto, Suzuki Matsuo, Kyoko Kishida, Edison Chen
Director: Kenta Fukasaku
Rating: PG (Some Disturbing Scenes)
Year Made: 2006


SPECIAL FEATURES

- Trailer
- Stars' Files
- Photo Gallery
- Yosuke Kubozuka's Interview
- Bonus Feature

 

 


TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Languages: Japanese
Subtitles: Traditional Chinese/Simplified Chinese/English
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Running Time: 1 hr 46 mins
Region Code: 3
Distributor: InnoForm Media

 

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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This review is made possible with the kind support from InnoForm


 


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