Feb
17
2007
Death Note
Posted by luna6
Movie : Death Note / デスノート
Release Date : June 16, 2006
Country : Japan
Director : Shusuke Kaneko
Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Asaka Seto
Runtime : 126 Minutes
Editor Rating : 7.0
(34 Votes, User Rating: 8.59)
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Death Note : How To Use It -
* The Human Whose Name Is Written In This Note Shall Die
* This note will not take effect unless the wrter has the person’s face in their mind when when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
* If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person’s name it will happen.
* If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
* After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
* Even if you do not actually possess the Death Note, the effect will be the same if you can recognize the person and his/her name to place in the blank.
Movie Review : For people that have never read the manga Death Note, nor familiar with the details of the movie “Death Note” I can sum up the movie like this : Take the Suicide Club, extract the random suicides and place in a whole lot of mysterious vigilante murders that causes a Battle Royale between Light Yagami (Evil) and L (Good ?) in a cat and mouse game similar to Infernal Affairs.
Tatsuya Fujiwara (of Battle Royale fame) plays Light Yagami, an unfortunate kid that gets carried away by the potent elixir of wielding God-like powers. This is all caused by a black notebook that he discovers while walking down a street (the notebook was dropped by the God of Death, Ryuk). In the black notebook, the rules are laid out clearly, which is that any names written into the book will cause that person to die if the author knows what the person looks like. Light Yagami then takes advantage of the black notebook to try to cleanse the world of murderers.
In the meantime his father is the police chief and is responsible for finding out the cause of all these mysterious deaths/murders. His boss in the police department brings in a mysterious person known as “L” (played by Ken’ichi Matsuyama)to help the investigation. L never actually appears, but only speaks to the police force through a laptop computer that his helper, Watari brings into their meeting room.
Although the tension increased exponentially during Yagami and L’s pursuit of the mysterious killer, there were a few scenes that contained flawed logic that made me scratch my head.
As an example, when L made the deduction that the murders must have been perpetrated by one single person his logic seemed flawed. L told the police department that the success rate for unsolved murders committed by groups of people were far lower than murders committed by an individual. At the time there were over 80 of these unsolved murders that had occurred all over the world. L then makes an odd assumption that if there were at least 80 accomplices, the chances of 80 people not getting caught by their 80th act would be close to zero. Thus, L concluded that only one individual could have perpetrated this act. Hmm, I do think L’s logic excluded the possibility that 80 people could have been working together, but there was nothing in his data to disprove the possibility of 2 or 3 people working together. So, no it did not have to necessarily be only one person. Why didn’t the police ask him this?
Another scene that I found to challenge my sense of belief would have been the scene when the FBI agent went to meet the suspected killer on a subway train. The FBI agent finds a manila envelope on the train which contains a wireless transmitter. He puts the transmitter on and speaks with the suspected killer. The person on the other end of the transmitter instructs the FBI agent that he is watching him. so don’t look around the train. The clever FBI agent follows his instructions and just looks down at the manila envelope. Incredibly enough he never noticed before or after wearing the transmitter, the slouching guy standing on the other side of the glass compartment door, wearing a hooded sweatshirt over his head! Furthermore the FBI agent had been tailing only one suspect, Light Yagami (there were 11 other FBI agents tailing the other potential suspects), yet the thought that Light Yagami could be the person talking to him on the other end of the transmitter never occurred to him?
Beside these head scratchers, there were tons of clever cat and mouse moves done by Light Yagami to avoid detection by the police, as well as some very clever moves by L in his attempt to catch Light Yagami. This would have been my favorite part of the film and it made me forget about the bad CGI effects used to create the God Of Death - Ryuk. I would say if you are willing to forgive some of the flawed logic, as well not minding some cartoonish (this is based off of a manga after all!) scenes and characters, then you will enjoy Death Note for what it is : A fun cat and mouse game between good and evil. The ending left no doubt there will be a sequel and I am looking forwards to checking that one out.
Cast:
Tatsuya Fujiwara - Light Yagami
Ken’ichi Matsuyama - LAsaka Seto - Naomi Misora
Shigeki Hosokawa - FBI Agent Ray
Erika Toda - Misa Amane
Shunji Fujimura - Watari
Takeshi Kaga - Souichiro Yagami
Yu Kashii - Shiori Kashino
Shido Nakamura - Ryuuk (voice)
Sota Aoyama - Detective Matsuda
Norman England - FBI Agent
Masanori Fujita - Stalker
Michiko Godai - Sachiko Yagami
Miyuki Komatsu - Detective Sawa
Matt Lagan - Lind L. Taylor
Sarutoki Minagawa
Hikari Mitsushima - Sayu Yagami
Takeo Nakahara - Matsubara
Ikuji Nakamura - Detective Ukida
Shin Shimizu - Detective Mogi
Yoji Tanaka - Sasaki
Masahiko Tsugawa - Police Chief Saeki
2006 Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews |
Comments
10 Comments so far
Vicman - “When Light is behind him, Raye recognizes the voice but cannot remember who is talking to him. Raye recognizes Light AFTER he gets the heart attack and falls to the floor.” puts that scene in better context. Would have been nice if that was explained somehow in the film but oh well. I did enjoy this one…more so than the sequel and looking forwards to checking out “L” next year.
“yet the thought that Light Yagami could be the person talking to him on the other end of the transmitter never occurred to him?”
This is addressed in the manga somewhat. When Light is behind him, Raye recognizes the voice but cannot remember who is talking to him. Raye recognizes Light AFTER he gets the heart attack and falls to the floor.
Remember that Raye is being controlled by the Death Note. Maybe due to this, Raye does not notice Light.
In my opinion of the movie, I thought it was good, only that they skipped a lot of things from the manga..
But then again, I saw the movie first. And that is how it got me into the manga. So in my opinion the movie is a good “here is a summary of the whole story, read the manga for more details…”
i can explain the whole move right here:
light: “i’ve got you fooled”
l: “no, i’ve got you fooled”
light: “no, i really got your fooled”
l: “hah, whatever, i got you fooled”
light: “really! i got you fooled!”
l: “bullsh*t! i got you fooled!”
the end….
I think the movie is pretty unrealistic unlike the story in the manga..it has a better story line than the movie..
Besides the poor CG effects with the Death Gods, Death Note was just so good. The amount of suspense and thrills placed in Death Note was better than any amusement park ride I have been on. I can’t wait to see the sequel!
where i can download it for free???
hi luna,
yeah, i dont read manga either, but the storyline for this one was so interesting..but then they dragged it ova for too long and i got bored with it in the end. i’m not sure if the manga is still goin or its finished.
um…i cant remember wat happens..its been 2/3 years since i read it. if L becomes “evil”…i wont spoil it, just wait for the next installment ;) but even if he becomes evil or not, u would still cheer for him, n that was wat i thought the difference was between the manga and the movie. in the movie..his character just was more emotionally inaccessable~
i think ur reading too much into the whole apple symbolic thing :) personally i think it was a bit of a cheap hollow mystical imagery they put it to complete the whole relgious quasi feel, it doesnt realli lend itself in the story-nothing significant. but then u can say it adds a teaser with its knowledge/temptation imagery as well.
but still, i always think its such a challenge for movie directors to make a film from a story/book first. because its inevitable it gets compared to the original book/manga/story and either it lives up to it or not.
Apple you bring up some good points. I’ve never read a manga in my life, so I watched this movie without any expectations.
Tatsuya Fujiwara as in Battle Royale gets overshadowed by his co-stars. Ken’ichi Matsuyama played L over the top, but I found it to be entertaining at least. I was underwhelmed with Asaka Seto’s performance as well. She played the same brooding type of character as in Linda Linda Linda, yet I liked her performance in Linda Linda Linda way more.
Even though the acting wasn’t that great, I tried not to focus on it as much, because the movie was cartoonish from the get go.
Since I haven’t read the orignal manga, I am going by your judgement and believe that those who have read the manga will enjoy the movie a lot less.
With that stated, I usually go for stories that have cat and mouse mind games between two smart people. I did think Death Note was fun to follow in that regards…so thats what basically pushed it to a 7.
By the way I’m not really sure I want to know…because I plan on watching the sequel whenever I get the oppurtunity…but….
I know the Apple is symbolic of knowledge & sin ala Adam and Eve….and there were a good bit of religious imagery in the film. But I couldn’t help thinking about this…
Ryuk (the God Of Death) loved Apples and hence, Light kept feeding Apples to Ryuk.
L liked Apples as well, but as in Apple Computers (Powerbook G4s and the old school G4 Power Macs) - everybody else had Windows computers! L also always sat in a position similar to a bird/bat//Gargoyle….like Ryuk?
Does this mean L is going to be one of the evil ones in Death Note 2?
hi luna,
i didnt think this movie was that good…maybe coz i’ve read the manga b4 so i concentrated more on the acting n filming rather than the storyline. the acting i found was realli bad..n the casting, that guy didnt have the superiority flair/charisma for the main character. i think the manga worked so well because u knew the main guy was pretty screwed up n flawed but u still cheer for him. in the movie, he wasnt very likeable, so i ddint end up caring if he got caught or not or wateva happens to him. n the filming was realli textbook, slow n banal. I actualli got so bored that i fell asleep near the end. well, u gave it a 7, i was wondering if u read the manga b4hand or just watched this film? maybe i had too high expectation.
n are u just realli into asian films n not english films? i was wondering wat ur take on for “babel” would be…it has a japanese component in it….^ ^