Post by lostinlimbo on Sept 30, 2017 4:43:32 GMT
I’m not familiar with the Japanese horror-fantasy anime series this live-action film is adapted from, yet I was keen to check it out after catching the film trailer and it looked like I was the only one interested being the lone figure in the cinema. Nothing quite like having a cinema all to yourself, as by the end and heading out --- I don’t think the staff realized I was in there. In a way made the experience much better.
I might eventually check out the anime to see how faithful it was to its source material, and to maybe clear up some plot threads that felt like they were breezed over in favor of the central character coming to terms with the sanity of his affliction. Which in a way is understandable, wanting to develop and focus on its core story within a limited time frame, but it did get me intrigued on other facades (like the mysterious ghoul investigators known as the white doves and the specially designed masks of the ghouls) of this Tokyo alternate reality where ghouls, individuals who can only survive by eating human flesh, live among humans in secret, hiding their true nature to evade an underground government agency that hunts them down.
So we follow that of Kaneki Ken, a shy bookworm student who survives a ghoul attack, and the doctors used the internal organs from the dead ghoul that attacked him to save his life. In doing so, he transforms into a half-ghoul, half-human hybrid and must learn quickly to adapt to their lifestyle to stay alive. There’s also another subplot involving a mother and child ghoul on the run from the white dove investigators, where they seek haven at the same place that Kaneki finds solace/and works at --- a coffee shop run by ghouls. Why a coffee shop, well to battle the painful stomach churns for human flesh, coffee seems to settle the cravings. However human flesh is still a must to survive, and these ghouls go about their feeding in all different types of manners.
You can sense the uneven narrative trying to squeeze so much in, skimming through story details and side-characters copping the blunt end of it. Sometimes they unexpectedly cross paths to only fall away, but the acting all round is spot on. The ideas are unique and themes are prominent, but the storytelling goes down a predictable road where the stylized directorial techniques dress it up. First and second acts are measured, establishing character and situations, building upon the dark psychological underlining of its context, but come to the third act it’s all about raw emotions. Everything seems to pick up, throwing your way a training montage and feverish ghoul standoffs with the White Doves like out of a combat video game. Those moments pack a punch, but I thought the earlier scenes --- like the moment when Kaneki first gets attacked --- were far more striking in installing fear and intensity. It showed that Masataka Kubota sure can scream though. I guess the effectiveness of those attack scenes could depend on how you feel about transparent CGI, as there can be an overload of it including numerous blood shots, impalements, leaping ghouls, glowing red eyes, scrapping tentacles, bio-weapons and ghoul transformations.
I would’ve liked to see more crazy ghoul activity, even scenes of Kaneki Ken (in that killer mask) succumbing to his deep-rooted agony, letting the terrifyingly instinctive nature of the ghoul takeover and expansion on this reality, but in the end it simply magnifies a minor, but humane chapter to this vast universe of ghouls trying to co-exist with its unaware prey.
