Tube experience (August 2009)

These are the movies and TV series (except those I am required to watch for class) I watched this month. By the way, I graded them based on the UP grading system. 1 is highest, 3 is passing, 4 is conditional failure, INC is incomplete and 5 is FAIL. Looks like I’m not a good critic of movies… but that’s that!

Partner (TV series, June-August 2009) - 2.5

A Frozen Flower (쌍화점, Ssanghwajeom) (2008) - 2.5 (too many sex scenes cost the movie a .25 deduction)

Angels & Demons (2009) - 1.75

Finding Nemo (2003) - 1.5

Curse of the Golden Flower (满城尽带黄金甲, Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia) (2006) - 1.75

Erin Brockovich (2000) - 1.5

War of the Worlds (2006) - 2.5

Children of Men (2006) - 1.5

*****

252: Signal of Life (生存者あり, Seizonsha Ari) - 2.75

Director: Nobuo Mizuta

Release year: 2008 (Japan)

Cast

Hideaki Ito – Yuji Shinohara

Masaaki Uchino – Shizuma Shinohara

Takayuki Yamada – Makoto Shigemura

Yu Kashii – Saki Umino

Yuichi Kimura – Keisuke Fujii

Satoshi Matsuda – Ippei Aoki

Minji – Kim Su-Min

Masahiko Nishimura – Akio Kogure

Yoichi Nukumizu – Haruo Tsudanuma

Ayane Omori – Shiori Shinohara

Sachiko Sakurai – Yumi Shinohara

Tetta Sugimoto – Tetsushi Mashiba

Taro Yamamoto – Tatsuya Miyauchi

A powerful typhoon hits Tokyo, sending a gigantic storm surge that floods the city’s seaward side. Yuji Shinohara (Hideaki Ito) rushes to find his wife (Sachiko Sakurai) and their deaf-mute daughter, Shiori (Ayane Omori), trapped inside Tokyo’s subway system. However, the flood divides the family; Yumi escapes the subway while Yuji and Shiori remain inside, their survival uncertain.

Yuji, Shiori and three other survivors struggle with numerous perils in the ruined subway including flash floods that trap the group into an abandoned station and collapsing walls that bury Shiori. Yuji, a former rescue worker, teaches his co-survivors the 252 code (二五二, ni-go-ni), a code that rescue forces in Japan use to signal that survivors are present. The 252 code works and rescue forces are informed of the existence of a survivor (in an apparently forsaken situation) in the train station. A second typhoon complicates matters. Aboveground, Yuji’s brother Shizuma (Masaaki Uchino), also a rescue worker, is torn between following official orders to halt rescue operations and the need to risk his and his colleagues’ lives in saving that survivor, which everyone correctly assumed was Yuji.

Yuji’s dark past and reason for quitting his rescue worker job are revealed. The possibility of a total cave-in moves the rescue forces into a state of heightened urgency, uniting towards risking their lives and defying official orders. Their head gives in, and with the help of the meteorologist Saki Umino (Yu Kashii), coordinates a delicate plan dependent on the 18-minute window the storm’s eye affords. However, the eye passes ahead of schedule, casting a dark cloud over the success of the rescue operation.

Review

Although this movie is my sister’s favorite and I found Hideaki Ito a handsome and good actor, I can’t help but be frustrated over the movie’s mistakes. The flood effects were to be appreciated, but I just can’t believe the long time it took before the subways stations finally (and exasperatingly) got filled with water. I would really feel down if the cute girl died, but I felt a bit off that Shiori (and most of the other characters) would have to be exposed to numerous near-death experiences and survive them all. People can bear losing one of the main characters (after all, the movie is about death too, right?) Too much time is spent on tears, which get ineffectual and pathetic not long after. The last scene is the most frustrating of all. It was so unreal that the Japanese, and Japanese rescue workers at that, stereotypically portrayed as busy and no-nonsense creatures, would just stand back and throw admiring stares. 

*****

And the following are on my watch list for September:

Lost in Translation

Memoirs of a Geisha

Pan’s Labyrinth

Hotel Rwanda