The Black Swindler
Yasuharu Ishii
Pop and drama idol Tomohisa Yamashita reprises the role he played in the TV-series adaptation of the best-selling manga Kurosagi, which looks at the world of swindlers.
White swindlers (shirosagi) scam victims for their money while red swindlers (akasagi) steal your heart. Kurosaki (Yamashita) is a black swindler, or kurosagi, who preys on other swindlers.
He does this because his family was wiped out by cheats in a plot masterminded by Katsuragi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), whom he now depends upon for information about other swindlers.
Needless to say, theirs is a complicated relationship.
Yamashita's blank-faced pretty-boy looks are put to good use since he has to adopt various identities as a con artist, but the set-up for the final scam takes way too long and lacks the wow factor, after films such as Hollywood's Ocean's Eleven series.
The cast of characters is also not drawn well and some of the relationships between the characters are not clearly delineated.
Also, repeatedly pinning the blame for Japan's long-lingering economic malaise on bankruptcy fraud perpetrated by swindlers is just too far-fetched and jarring.
You begin to wonder what scam the film-makers are pulling.
(ST)
Monday, September 08, 2008
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
Nicholas Drayson
On first introduction, Mr Malik is a gentlemanly retiree who spends his time bird-watching. Pleasant enough, but perhaps not the most exciting prospect for Rose Mbikwa, the widowed guide of the weekly bird walks in Nairobi, Kenya.
When a flamboyant schoolmate, Harry Khan, turns up from Mr Malik’s past, the stage is set for a contest between the two. Whoever identifies the greatest number of bird species in a week will earn the privilege of asking Rose to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball.
This book’s unassuming charm grows on the reader, rather like Mr Malik. Decency and goodness are not the most flashy qualities, but as the contest progresses, Drayson has you rooting firmly for the “short, round and balding” underdog.
The story appears somewhat slight at first, but there is more to bird-watching than meets the eye. It is a hobby, but it can also be a lesson about the virtues of paying attention to one’s surroundings and discovering the richness around us.
A bird’s-eye view can be instructive as the avian world can be read as an allegory for the shenanigans taking place in Kenyan politics.
Drayson does not shy away from the darker side of life in Nairobi. Besides talking about corruption, he also touches on crime, the devastation caused by Aids and the abduction of young men to be sold as soldiers in nearby countries.
A seemingly trifling premise opens up into a far more bountiful world.
If you like this, read: Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
This genteel tale of crime-solving is set in Gaborone, Botswana.
(ST)
Nicholas Drayson
On first introduction, Mr Malik is a gentlemanly retiree who spends his time bird-watching. Pleasant enough, but perhaps not the most exciting prospect for Rose Mbikwa, the widowed guide of the weekly bird walks in Nairobi, Kenya.
When a flamboyant schoolmate, Harry Khan, turns up from Mr Malik’s past, the stage is set for a contest between the two. Whoever identifies the greatest number of bird species in a week will earn the privilege of asking Rose to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball.
This book’s unassuming charm grows on the reader, rather like Mr Malik. Decency and goodness are not the most flashy qualities, but as the contest progresses, Drayson has you rooting firmly for the “short, round and balding” underdog.
The story appears somewhat slight at first, but there is more to bird-watching than meets the eye. It is a hobby, but it can also be a lesson about the virtues of paying attention to one’s surroundings and discovering the richness around us.
A bird’s-eye view can be instructive as the avian world can be read as an allegory for the shenanigans taking place in Kenyan politics.
Drayson does not shy away from the darker side of life in Nairobi. Besides talking about corruption, he also touches on crime, the devastation caused by Aids and the abduction of young men to be sold as soldiers in nearby countries.
A seemingly trifling premise opens up into a far more bountiful world.
If you like this, read: Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
This genteel tale of crime-solving is set in Gaborone, Botswana.
(ST)
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Boys Over Flowers The Movie
Yasuharu Ishii
The story: Tsukasa Domyoji, the rich young head of a business conglomerate, announces that he will be marrying Tsukushi Makino in the spring. But the engagement gift of a bejewelled tiara, a Domyoji heirloom, is stolen. In order not to jeopardise the wedding, the two decide to recover it on their own.
Boys Over Flowers is the best-selling shojo (young girl) manga of all time in Japan. It has been the source material for various adaptations, including the Taiwanese version Meteor Garden, which launched the career of the F4 pop idols.
A little background here as the movie picks up where the second season of the Japanese live-action TV series left off, with the cast reprising their roles on the big screen.
Tsukushi Makino (TV actress Mao Inoue) attends a high school for the privileged and finds herself a fish out of water given her lower-class background.
Worse, she crosses the path of F4, the ruling clique of four guys who can make life hell for anyone they choose. But she eventually falls for Tsukasa Domyoji (Jun Matsumoto, member of popular boyband Arashi), the leader of F4, and at the end of Season 2, says yes when he proposes.
There was talk at first of a third season but the producers chose to wrap up the series with a movie instead.
The problem, as with such jumps from the small screen to the big, is how to tell a story that would engage new fans as well as satisfy old ones. Unfortunately, there is little here for the former and only slightly more for the latter.
The contrived story has Makino and Domyoji searching for a stolen tiara so that they can learn about the true meaning of love. The plot is simply an excuse to move them to exotic locations such as Las Vegas, Hong Kong and an island supposedly in the South Seas, to fill up the two-hour-plus running time.
Matsumoto as the arrogant and hot-headed Domyoji and Inoue as the plucky yet vulnerable Makino share some chemistry, but the bickering grows tedious and the lessons learnt are too pat. The issue of class differences is raised and then dismissed in throwaway lines.
To be sure, one is not expecting a serious dissection of social issues here, but perhaps this would have worked better as a two-part TV series finale instead.
Released in Japan in June, distributor Toho expects the film to gross over 10 billion yen (S$130 million), which would make it one of the top-grossing domestic movies of the year.
I guess Boys still rule in Japan.
(ST)
Yasuharu Ishii
The story: Tsukasa Domyoji, the rich young head of a business conglomerate, announces that he will be marrying Tsukushi Makino in the spring. But the engagement gift of a bejewelled tiara, a Domyoji heirloom, is stolen. In order not to jeopardise the wedding, the two decide to recover it on their own.
Boys Over Flowers is the best-selling shojo (young girl) manga of all time in Japan. It has been the source material for various adaptations, including the Taiwanese version Meteor Garden, which launched the career of the F4 pop idols.
A little background here as the movie picks up where the second season of the Japanese live-action TV series left off, with the cast reprising their roles on the big screen.
Tsukushi Makino (TV actress Mao Inoue) attends a high school for the privileged and finds herself a fish out of water given her lower-class background.
Worse, she crosses the path of F4, the ruling clique of four guys who can make life hell for anyone they choose. But she eventually falls for Tsukasa Domyoji (Jun Matsumoto, member of popular boyband Arashi), the leader of F4, and at the end of Season 2, says yes when he proposes.
There was talk at first of a third season but the producers chose to wrap up the series with a movie instead.
The problem, as with such jumps from the small screen to the big, is how to tell a story that would engage new fans as well as satisfy old ones. Unfortunately, there is little here for the former and only slightly more for the latter.
The contrived story has Makino and Domyoji searching for a stolen tiara so that they can learn about the true meaning of love. The plot is simply an excuse to move them to exotic locations such as Las Vegas, Hong Kong and an island supposedly in the South Seas, to fill up the two-hour-plus running time.
Matsumoto as the arrogant and hot-headed Domyoji and Inoue as the plucky yet vulnerable Makino share some chemistry, but the bickering grows tedious and the lessons learnt are too pat. The issue of class differences is raised and then dismissed in throwaway lines.
To be sure, one is not expecting a serious dissection of social issues here, but perhaps this would have worked better as a two-part TV series finale instead.
Released in Japan in June, distributor Toho expects the film to gross over 10 billion yen (S$130 million), which would make it one of the top-grossing domestic movies of the year.
I guess Boys still rule in Japan.
(ST)
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