(2017).
I never read the manga on which this is based (I believe there was an anime series too), but was introduced to it by someone at a place I was working. In our free time she showed me the manga and explained the characters/story. Only some of that stuck in my brain (since my memory's so shoddy these days), but from what she'd told me, I was intrigued. From what little I saw of it, the character of Touka was the main one who caught my interest. She seemed pretty 'badass'. The other thing that caught my attention was the mask that the lead character, Kaneki, wore - it was certainly memorable.
Having never read the manga or watched the anime series, I was going into this movie with only a few vague memories of the characters/story, so it came as quite a surprise to me (even though it
shouldn't have) when the seemingly nice/sweet girl (Rize) who Kaneki was awkward around went from this...
To
this (after having take a good-sized bite out of poor unsuspecting Kankei)...
Worst. Date Ever.
So that^ was surprise #1. Surprise #2 came not long after, when she was flattened by falling pipes. As soon as this happened, I remembered seeing the grisly scene depicted in the manga I was shown. Speaking of 'grisly', while the movie has a decent amount of gruesome/violent moments, the part that actually made me shudder was after Kaneki had started turning into a ghoul and he was trying to eat/drink regular human food and made an unholy mess on the floor of his kitchen - all I could think was "
Ew." at that. Not quite as 'ew'-worthy, but certainly unnerving were the ghoul eyes. When Kaneki's turned red and black, I thought they did a good job with that. I've watched so many supernatural shows/movies with the same ol' same ol' all-black eyes or glowing red/yellow/whatever colour eyes...it gets a bit boring/old. These were truly unnerving and seemed painful (complete with squishy-sound effects when he'd move his eye). They also reminded me of Gambit's eyes from the X-Men comics/animated series.
I was very happy once Touka eventually showed up. When I first watched the trailer for the movie, I had to have Touka pointed out to me by the person who'd introduced me to Tokyo Ghoul, as I was not expecting her to look so young (from what pictures I'd seen of her in the manga and anime, she looked a bit older to me).
However, my concerns with the actress cast were alleviated once seeing her in the movie. It didn't take long before she convinced me she was right for the role, playing the part of Touka as I thought/imagined she would be like. So, once again, it's been proven that the
attitude/
personality of a character is what matters most, rather than the physical appearance. She kicked all sorts of butt, which I was very happy about, but what I liked most was her interaction with Kaneki. She really had no time for his ignorance of what was happening to him. Yes, she might've seemed a bit 'mean' to him, and I could definitely sympathise with him not having much of a clue as to what was going on, but at the same time I could understand her impatience with him. She was a good contrast to his character and I liked the way they played off each other.
I liked that even though she wasn't very nice to Kaneki, he said that he cared about her, and despite her attitude towards him, it did appear as if she came to 'care' about him too...eventually (even if she maintained otherwise).
Their training scene was a good one, I thought, and I enjoyed it.
I liked seeing Kaneki eventually harness his 'kagune'.
Yes, he'd used it earlier in a fight with the glasses-wearing jerk who seriously injured his best friend (the way he shoved poor Hideyoshi Nagachika's head into that table or whatever it was looked pretty painful, and it certainly messed him up. I couldn't remember if the friend lived or not in the manga, so I was actually quite worried for him, as I would've hated for Kaneki to lose his best friend when he was already dealing with so much). I thought that first fight Kaneki had was pretty neat. The actor playing his friend did a good job too. He could've been a supremely annoying character (in fact, I think what little I'd seen of him in the manga made me think he'd be a character that'd bug me), but I actually felt sorry for him when he was hurt.
Speaking of friends, I liked Touka's human friend, Yoriko, who was only doing what she thought was a nice thing by bringing Touka some home-made food. Unfortunately for Touka, human food was pretty horrid to ghouls, so it was almost painful to watch her have to eat it to keep her friend from being sad...though, admittedly, even *I* would've probably caved after seeing Yoriko's sad reaction to Touka saying she'd try it later.
And as for the 'kagune' - I've seen some reviews complaining about how they were created with CGI, but all I can think is, "How
else were they going to bring that to life?". It's such a creative/unique-looking thing, and I thought it was pretty dazzling - especially how each ghoul's one was different.
Yes, they were obviously CGI'd...but who cares? They made for an interesting visual and exciting fight scenes.
I liked most of the ghouls who took Kaneki in and helped him get accustomed to being a ghoul/ghoul ways. I liked...
The old man, Yoshimura - he seemed the nicest of the lot.
The young girl, Hinami - she was sweet...even though Kaneki walked in on her ghoulish feeding. I felt bad for her when she lost her mum and it was awesome to see her 'kagune' near the end...I just wish she'd
used it. Which was the same problem I had with her mum, although I liked her too. Speaking of...
Hinami's mum, Ryōko - I guess she was against fighting? As she didn't untilise her 'kagune' when she got executed.
The waiter, Koma Enji - I don't really recall much of what he did/said, but he seemed to be a decent guy/pretty nice.
Irimi Kaya - I don't really recall, but at least she was better than...
Renji - The only one I wasn't overly fond of.
His purpose seemed to be to stand around and glare, and I didn't see him being much use in the final fight when Touka needed some help. What was he doing the whole time?
Speaking of that final fight, I really didn't like the two ghoul investigator characters who were opposing Kaneki and Touka in their respective fights.
They grey-haired dude, Mado, really annoyed me and I wanted him dead (especially considering he stole ghouls' 'kagune' and used them as a weapon against other ghouls). I was glad when Touka finally offed him (with Hinami's help). The other guy, Amon, seemed slightly more sane...though the fact that he didn't give up fighting even after he'd been bitten (and, presumably, would eventually turn into a ghoul as a result) told me he was so hellbent on killing Kaneki he wouldn't listen to reason. I didn't feel sorry for him when he found Mado's limbless (well...virtually) corpse.
Last but not least, I must give praise to the actor playing Ken Kaneki. I thought he did a good job of playing the nice, awkward guy in the beginning who then went on this bizarre character journey and near the end had believably become this pretty 'badass' dude who could fight, take bites out of people and even deliver Jokey-esque maniacal laughs.
I know that this movie doesn't have a high rating on IMDB and that it's probably not popular with a lot of people who read the manga/watched the anime (apologies to any fans if I managed to mangle the story with my review and/or misunderstood any of the characters’ actions), but I myself quite enjoyed it and was hoping there'd be a second one. It seems there is (though it looks like they got someone else to play Touka, which is somewhat disappointing, but I'll at least wait to see the movie before I judge). I'm glad I finally got to see this, as I'd been itching to check it out as soon as I learned there was going to be a live action version. I might even end up getting it on DVD or Blu-ray at some point.
!! 
. 
.
. 
and we went to a restaurant for dinner and a lot of my family including my cousin and her husband came with us and I didn't know they were all going to be there with us and what surprised me even more was another one of my cousins who lives far away from us came to see me too and I didn't think I would see her again until around Christmas so it was a nice surprise. My cousin (Jennifer) still isn't driving but she is going to be returning to work soon which is a big step in the right direction. I think both sequels to the 'Poltergeist' are underrated and a lot of people always talk about the first movie but anytime we watch the 'Poltergeist' here we watch the three of them in a row or over a few nights and one of the things I have always liked about the Horror genre is how many good sequels there are and there have been some really bad ones too that were nothing like the original movies they continued on from but I think Horror is the genre that has the best sequels and we often like to watch Horror franchises in a row and don't just watch one movie. Do you like watching them that way or will you randomly watch a movie like 'Friday the 13th' 4' or 'A Nightmare On Elm Street 3' out of order 'cause call me obsessive but I like them to be in order. 
and I completely agree with you about it being an intriguing concept that could have been better and perhaps with a remake now it could be and they would be able to use the Langoliers more and make them look scarier but I thought it was okay for what it was and I liked seeing the actor out of 'Quantum Leap' and the actress from 'Alias' and 'Brothers & Sisters' and we have watched it again on DVD and didn't mind it. It is not one of Stephen King's best though and I noticed you included 'The Stand' below and I liked that one but I am looking forward to the remake 'cause there were things that were left out of the miniseries from the book I have always wanted to see in it like the tornado and the aeroplane going down and have you read 'The Stand' graphic novels? Also I heard recently they are making a new adaption of 'Salem's Lot' and I was wondering if you have seen the original with David Soul and the remake with Rob Lowe and Samantha Mathis and what you thought of them. 
!! 
. 
)
. 
. 
From what I remember the tornado was more in the middle of the novel and they had it in the graphic novel adaptions and Nick and Tom's characters were the main focus at the time. The aeroplane crash was at the start and there were more things in the book that explained how the virus got on the loose that got left out. The 'Salem's Lot remake is worth checking out but avoid the sequel. 
