Tokyo Boy

Tokyo Boy, (東京少年, Tokyo Shounen), article found here, is a Japanese film released in 2008 focusing on what happens if a girl, who also has an overprotective, split-personality who happens to be male, falls in love with a boy. It stars Horikita Maki and Ishida Takuya. The summary is as follows:

Minato is a young girl who was traumatized at a young age by being abandoned by her parents and left with her senile grandmother. She frequently corresponds with a pen-pal named Night, a boy about the same age as her that she's never actually seen in person. Although Minato and Night are very different - Minato is upbeat while Night is brooding, they get along anyway and she regularly updates him on the happenings in her daily life. Minato is even willing to confide in Night that she's falling in love with a boy she's recently met named Sho.

One day she wakes up and finds Sho acting extremely distant and tentative around her. She suspects Night may have something to do with this so she arranges to meet him at the mail box. However, he never shows. As it turns out Night is actually Minato's overprotective split personality and has been trying to drive Sho away by bullying him whenever he had control of her body.

What drew me to watch this was the fact that (1) Horikita Maki is one of my favorite Japanese actresses and (2) I have a thing for psychological disorders. One of the first things I expected was pretty believable acting, but I was going to wait to see if I was wow'ed by the entire movie and plot itself. As expected, Horikita's acting was superb. The audience (at least I did) would feel the change when she switched from her female personality to her male personality in an instant. The way she walked, spoke, moved, and looked was different. I actually like the way her hair was when in her male "form" and she (or he, as the character was) exuded this sort of cocky and somewhat dangerous aura. It was very good.

As for the entire movie itself, it wasn't bad. It went in a seemingly chronological order at first until mid-way through when it picked up from the scenes that were missing the first time around, telling the story from the other two main characters: Night and Shu. Even though the entire process and disorder was glossed over, it's not very surprising since it's only a movie and there's only so much you can do in 95 minutes. The romance itself didn't really go very far as it was in its early stages.

All in all, it's worth a watch, if only for Horikita's acting skills. :)

You can watch it here.

4.6 Billion Years of Love

4.6 Billion Years of Love [wiki, dreamlogic], aka Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (46億年の恋, 46 okunen no koi) is a Japanese film released in 2006, winning a number of awards, revolving around the story of two inmates in an all-male prison. It stars Matsuda Ryuhei, Ando Masanobu, Ishibashi Renji, and Ishibashi Ryo. The summary is as follows:

At the end of their vacant, destructive lives, two boys meet when they are both incarcerated for murder. With exactly opposite personalities, the two boys share only their instincts, but this is enough for them to discover the emotion of love. However, at the end of their love lies another murder, with one boy the accused and one the victim.

This movie is a mystery and a detective story with a dash of homosexual undertones all in one (though nothing's shown). It's also one of those movies where nothing's clear and it makes you think. The scenes are put together at seemingly random points, starting from where one man is caught "red handed" killing the other, and insists that he's the murderer. The rest of the movie follows the investigation, going through their respective personal histories and everything surrounding the murder up till the end, when the case is solved. What also makes this unique and artistic is the strange, yet fascinating effects that are used to move the movie along.

What's interesting is the message it leaves the audience with: we're all defined by our surroundings as well as the people around us and we're doomed to live up to that destiny. It's pretty powerful, yet beautiful at the same time. Even with the slightly graphic murder scenes, then again, I tend to like graphic things.

All in all, the movie was nicely done and even though my brain was a little clunky from just getting back from school, it was a nice exercise to piece together the movie. You can watch it here.