Live-Action deviation

December 30, 2006

Well well, just watched Death Note 2 - The Last Name a few hours ago. And no, just because i did the reviews for Curse of the Golden Flower and Night at the Museum in the same language as used in the movie, dont expect me to be using jap to review this movie. Well, i would if i had sufficient knowledge of the japanese language, which is obviously far from it.

Now, into the topic proper. As from part 1 of this live-action movie series, manga readers or even anime-only viewers such as myself could tell that the story has been changed (rather) significantly, thus don’t go comparing the manga with the movie.

As I’m only watching the anime version of Death Note and it’s only shown to a little more than movie 1, I dont truly know how far the story has deviated at the end of the live-action series so I guess it wouldn’t really affect my judgement for this particular movie.

For the most part of the movie, it is rather logical and easy to follow assuming u’ve watched the first one. Those who are watching part 2 as their first encounter with Death Note series may find themselves lost because many things about the Death Note aren’t explained clearly in DN2 as it was already done so in part 1. Good choice as it will waste a lot of screen time explaining everything over again. As it is, i think the ending was kind of rushed so that the movie can be ended and not drag into 3hours or longer. Instead, they (producers) recapped on some of the basic rules of the Death Note at the starting of this movie, for the benefit of those who only came in contact with the first part and neither the manga/anime.

Following that, the story resumes with Kira getting into the investigation team and how the 2nd Kira (Misa) came into the picture, and finally interacting with Kira. Many things happened in the course of the story but somehow the battle of wits part is much more rushed compared to the 1st part. It didn’t have the similar kind of atmosphere as in movie 1 and i had the feeling of being more “spoon-fed” with the on-goings. Once again, good for those who cant figure out things fast enough but to many i’m sure it kind of lacked the “kick”. For the majority part of the movie, it flowed pretty well even though clearly it’s a version that the production team has come up with. Unfortunately, the ending wasn’t nicely done. Blatant continuity errors took place. *note: the following may contain spoilers*

1) The Death Note that Light took at the end is a fake (swapped by Watari on 2nd day of Misa release as explained by L). So how does Light see Ryuk again? He did not touch Ryuk’s Death Note ever since he gave up the ownership. Even when he wrote the name of Takada Kiyomi using the piece of Death Note in his watch, he didn’t actually come into contact with the paper. Only his needle-like thing came into contact. Even if u say it’s his blood, the blood already out of his body liao so I dont think it works that way? Haha. So the ending is kinda flawed, no doubt at the very end he got touch the paper. He was able to see Ryuk too early~.
2) After Ryuk wrote Light’s name in another of his Death Note (this part not explained in movie why Ryuk got so many Death Notes), yes, Light did have a heart attack, but somehow Light has a very very strong heart/body as he is able to mumble so many sentences before dying when throughout the rest of the 2 movies, all victims that died through the cause of heart attack didn’t last even a quarter as long. I know for it’s for drama, but still the difference is too great to be forgiven. Haha.

Overall, this production is the best Live Action (from manga/game) i’ve seen. Though sadly, the image of Light i get in the anime is very much different from the Live-Action. And i think the acting of L is great, it’s no wonder there are rumours out there that there will be a spin-off Death Note movie with the focus on L. (with his great acting and great earnings from cinemas)
I would give it 3/5 (0.5 taken away because of the flawed ending.)

*End of review*

I am pretty sure there are other errors in the movies, but hey, i dont go to watch a movie SPECIALLY for finding faults and errors in the movies. Of course, there are always debatable actions of the characters in the movie. Like how Light didn’t confirm L’s “death” by checking his breathing/pulse and totally trust the sensor set up by L himself. Such things, imo, aren’t really blatant mistakes and they do happen in majority of movies/drama.

Now in response to mistakes that Ken spotted, i have the following to comment. Relevant for ken to understand only. (just lazy to retype what he wrote. but too long to leave it on his tagboard. lol)
1) The fact is that Japan has both Left and Right Hand Drive, as explained on Wiki.
2) Firstly, dont compare with manga. Obviously it’s changed in the Live-Action adaptation, so dont go commenting who was supposed to change the rules etc. Next, at the end, L explained that on the 2nd day Watari already swapped the Death Note that Misa possessed (which is then Ryuk’s Death Note.), so L can just happily look at the rules written in Ryuk’s version as he translated the rules into English for ease of use for the owner, which he would then deduce the 13 day rule is a fake. Now as to why Jealous’ Death Note had rules written in English. When Light told Rem to add in a fake 13 day rule, obviously Rem is going to write in a language that a Japanese would be able to read, if not Rem wouldn’t be able to execute Light’s plan (which he did explain to Rem before he went onto self-torture) and help Misa. So it’s only logical that the language the rules are written in would be something the next user can understand as Rem is supposed to save Misa. Thus, isn’t really oversight.

i guess i shouldnt be watching any more movies this year. (only 2 days to the new year~ duh). anyway, i should be sleeping soon. another day (or half) of lesson ahead of me.

p.s. won 50k in Gunbound lucky draw last night and none today. Kind of balances out huh. Lol.