Accuracy of Death, Sweet Rain, 死神の精度 – Whatever the Title is, It’s Takeshi Kaneshiro

OK.  I have to make this movie the final stop of my Asian Movie Marathon, take a break, and blog about something else.  This morning, I asked Cynthia who is not a big fan of Japanese movies, “Why pick this?”  Her answer was “Takeshi Kaneshiro” together with a isn’t-that-obvious look.

Isn’t that obvious that all the girls love Takeshi?  The sound of exhilaration from the female audience at those heart-melting moments makes me wonder if “Accuracy of Death” (literal translation) or “Sweet Rain” (alternative International title) is indeed a chick-flick (it’s probably not).

It’s not a tear jerking movie for sure.  “Accuracy of Death” is divided into 3 parts with each part tells a story of its own.  The “Death God” or better known as “Grim Reaper” in English talks to his targets (or contracts?) in human form and judges them for a week.  On the 8th day, he then makes a decision to “proceed” (i.e. death) or “suspend”.  What is special about this film is that by and large, the three sub-plots are unpredictable.  With such a high degree of unpredictability comes a price of a lack of anticipation of something dramatic.  At times, both Cynthia and I wondered where the story was heading.  It is also one of those movies that when the ending hits you, it really hits you and makes you go “ah-ha”.  Perhaps not as deep as I personally wish it to be.  But it is good for a change and have something challenges our minds a bit.

From my close to non-existing understanding of the Japanese language with lots of help from the online translator, the movie appears to be inspired by part 1, 2, and 6 of a 6-book series written by 伊坂幸太郎 between 2003 to 2005 – 「死神の精度」「死神と藤田」and「死神対老女」.  I wonder what happens to the rest of the stories.  Perhaps time for me to learn Japanese.

An unusual mystery Japanese movie uplifted by a good sense of humor.  All three sub-stories have different themes and since my favorite one is the first one, the rest of the stories seem to fall flat just a tiny bit.  After some research, I found the music video clip (featured below) sung by the main actress from the first story, 小西真奈美 (Manami Konishi), titled “Sunny Day”. 

Out of the four Asian films that I have recently watched – “Dance of a Dragon”, “Ayat-Ayat Cinta”, “Chocolate”, and “Accuracy of Death” – and if we could have time for only one movie, Cynthia would pick “Ayat-Ayat Cinta”.  I would probably pick “Chocolate”.  It is quite a rare moment that there are so many good Asian films showing at the same time.  And hence this crazy marathon.