Just finished watching "Beck" (2010) directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi (SPEC, Trick the Movie, Twentieth Century Boys, etc.) - The hopes and dreams of a recently formed rock band, with little sister role well played by Shiori Kutsuna.
The cast was a bit of a reunion for the cast of the TV drama "Mei chan no Shitsuji" (2009), the television series with Nana Eikura in the title role. Four of the six main actors in Beck worked together in "Mei chan no Shitsuji"- Hiro Mizushima, Takeru Sato, Osamu Mukai, and Shiori. Sure wish Hiro Mizushima would continue to act, as he says he is retired for good to be a full time writer. Wish he would consider that he could do both.....
The other two main actors were a very good Kenta Kiritani, and in a somewhat smaller role, Aoi Nakamura (who has had a lot of good roles lately, including co-starring with J-pop goddess, Ai Takahashi in the television series Q.E.D- I think this was a favorite of Yoshino san if I recall correctly??
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Standout in supporting roles were comedian Takanori Takeyama, and extremely cute Sari Kurauchi.
Generally a well done film, with some excellent music scenes, and some great guitar work.
Plot was interesting, but film was a bit stretched out in length, and there was one side plot that was a little bit preposterous and completely unnecessary (involving a stolen guitar and the bad boys from New York who come to Japan to claim it)
A couple of interesting director choices-
1) Shiori Kutsuna and Hiro Mizukushi play siblings, apparently who had spent time in New York, so their characters have lots of lines in English. Shiori, having grown up in Australia, had a very native Australian English. Hiro, who lived in Switerland from the age of six until he was 12 years old, spoke English with a "Atlantic" English (mix of British and North American)....this was not distracting, as it was a lot of fun to see English being used, and the use of English actually was important in the romantic development between Shiori's character and Takeru's character; so the disparity of regional accents was no big thang.
2) Takeru's character is probably second in importance to Hiro's character to the story, and the director decided not to try and use his singing voice, nor did he use a dubbed singer......When the character sang, the viewer would hear background music, but simply could only see him mouthing the words, but no sounds. The viewer only knew that he had an unbelievably unique and magnificeent voice by watching the reactions of the audience or the characters surrounding him while he sang. It was an interesting way to handle a character who is supposed to be some kind of genius at singing, by not using any voice to convey the idea. Did it work? It was okay, but I do not think it will used again in the future.
Also, the DVD that I bought has no subtitles other than Japanese (for the hard of hearing, I suppose), so I was not able fully to pick up the plot details without the help of some reviews written in English. A film with great rock and roll music, it is worth a watch. Is it a great film that happens to have a musical theme (think "Swing Girls")? No, I would say it doesn't quite reach that magical pinnacle. But.....worth a watch indeed.