Rinko Kikuchi – WilfridWong.com

Pacific Rim on 3D Dolby Atmos Is Quite Something

This is a good one!

It may be too early to call it. But Pacific Rim is my favorite movie of this year, thus far. Initially, I thought it was just another Transformer movie. I am glad that I did not give it a miss. My wife, our buddy, and I have watched this movie on 3D Dolby Atmos. The special effect looks great. How 3D technology has matured. The soundtrack composed by Ramin Djawadi sounds good too. I have enjoyed the director Guillermo del Toro’s work on Pan’s Labyrinth and was curious on what he could do with colossal sized robots and monsters. The detail that goes into the artwork is mind blowing. Each frame is a treat. You know how it is like for other similar movies whereby the robot or monster looks bigger in one scene than the other? The relative size of these giant robots and monsters against the environment appears to be consistent. The action sequence chewed the living cells out of my brain. I was holding onto my seat’s arms (or rather my wife’s hand) throughout the 132 minutes of tense action. Wow, it was breathtaking.

I am a fan of giant robots. I love the Japanese anime movie series Evangelion. Pacific Rim pretty much reminds me of Evangelion. In that movie, the main character pilots a mecha to protect the world from mysterious creatures known as Angels. In Pacific Rim, two characters are required to pilot a Jaeger (the giant robot) to battle against Kaiju (the monster). Because of the mental load needed to control a Jaeger, two pilots of a similar physical compatibility are linked at the neural level in order to share the mental strain. While the two pilots are mentally linked, they share with each other their deep memory and innermost emotion. Their moves are synchronized too (by and large) like a choreographed dance. This unique concept has caught my attention prompted me to watch it in a cinema.

Where do these Kaijus come from? The lore says that these aliens live inside the core of our planet. Once in a while, a portal or a mysterious passageway is open for the Kaijus to emerge and attack the coastal cities. These monsters evolve over time to be more powerful and humans from different countries pool their resources to create monstrous robots called Jaegers to counterattack. Despite all the effort, the situation remains dire. Humans have one last window of opportunity to turn the tide and attempt to avert extinction. The story of the movies set in this final hour between humanity and total annihilation. While the story may not have much depth, the suspense and the rather unpredictable plot makes up for it.

Two more worthy mentions before closing off this entry. The opening theme Pacific Rim features Tom Morello (guitarist of Rage against Machine and Audioslave) is memorable, blending rock sound into an orchestral sounding. I also like the song played during the end credits and a couple of others. Unfortunately, these tracks are not included in the official soundtrack. It is a joy watching Rinko Kikuchi’s performance. She is probably the one who stands out as a better actor. All in all, an enjoyable show especially on 3D Dolby Atmos. My wife and I are already thinking of getting the Blu-ray when it is out!

Norwegian Wood – A Film Adaptation Of Haruki Murakami’s Novel

Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite writers. I do not think it is possible to bring any of his books into a big screen. Because much of the content is based on the characters’ observation and their state of emotion, or even the writer’s observation on the world he creates. His story tends to get more and more surreal towards the end. But if anyone would want to make a film out of his books, “Norwegian Wood” is a good candidate. It is a rather straightforward love story. I am a huge fan of Murakami and I was curious on how “Norwegian Wood” would look like as an adaption.

I can imagine how lost one may feel watching “Norwegian Wood”. I have read the book and you may wish to read the review I have written. I feel that the movie is by and large faithful to the literature, down to the dialog level. As someone who is familiar with the written content, it seems to me that some of the key essences may have been lost in the adaptation. A 133 minutes film may sound long to you. When I told Cynthia and TK at the end of the show that the film felt too rush, they were shocked. The foundation of the storyline lies in a subplot structure of a trio – be it as 2 boys and 1 girl or 2 girls and 1 boy. These subplots are linked through a common theme – love and death. That, I do not think the filmmakers have explicitly brought out. Some of the subplots have so little air time that I think they may have been overlooked. I do not blame the filmmakers though. I even think that the way the subplots are segmented in terms of air time is proportionate to how the book is written (the first subplot has ended on page 31 of 386). A clearly demarcation of the different segments of the film like a text on timeline and location would have helped the audience in digesting the story’s structure.

The leading actor and actress have done a phenomenal work in bringing the characters alive. It is heart wrenching to see them cry in pain. On one hand, this movie thrills me down my spine when some of the key scenes stay so faithfully to the book. On the other hand, the omission of many of the side dialogs and observations has made part of the film looks like a silly chain of sex scenes. This film summarizes the book essentially, but not perfectly. If you have taken the effort to watch the movie – a very slow moving one by the way – you ought to read the book. If you have not read the book, I strongly recommend you to pick up a copy and finish it in the weekend before watching “Norwegian Wood” on screen. All in all, I am still thrilled that one of Murakami’s book has made it to the theater. And I would challenge more filmmakers in the future to adapt his other books.