15
Apr
Lalaport, the Toyosu Theater, and Dororo
Topic: Japan 2007
[mpiphoto=229,right,scale,300]Maria recently met up with an acquaintance who was visiting Japan for the first time. He had only been here a few days, and he was swooning, with observations like “I just bought shoes, and it was the nicest shoe shopping experience I’ve ever had…I rode the train, and it was the nicest train ride I’ve ever had…” and so on. Tokyo’s dazzling modernity, startling cleanliness, and the ubiquitous politeness of the Japanese combine to make a powerful first impression. As an American living here for a while, I’ll say it is - like anything else - something you start to get used to, until you experience it in a new context, and then it hits you all over again.
This happened to me the other night when Maria and I engaged in a strange and exotic ritual: we went to the movies. It’s something we haven’t done in probably a year (we are thrilled to have found a babysitter who can put Eidan to bed). We headed to the Toyosu Theater, home of Tokyo’s largest movie screen and located in Japan’s largest mall, Lalaport. I have never seen such a pristine, elegant, and completely spotless movie theater. The same goes for the mall. I usually can’t stand malls, but this one has a very airy, open design, and the carpeted floor and many cloth seats gave it a comfortable and inviting feel. Also, the mall is on the waterfront, and the stores are organized into several buildings shaped like ships, so it’s not the typical mall collection of big, ugly box-like buildings.
[mpiphoto=231,left,scale,200]The only disappointment was the movie, Dororo. I actually enjoyed it, but it was a much sillier movie than suggested by its massive marketing campaign back in January, which had led me to believe I was going to see something on par with Lord of the Rings. The conceit for the film is bizarre and intriguing - it’s based on the 1960s Dororo manga that’s well known in Japan:
The story takes place in Japan during the Sengoku period, or the Warring States period. Forty-eight major demons, known as majins (lit. demon gods), sense the impending birth of a powerful human, who will grow up to be the vanquisher of demonkind.
The forty-eight majins make a deal with the samurai Kagemitsu Daigo–who is the father of the yet-unborn child–wherein Daigo pledges forty-eight body parts of his unborn son to the majins, receiving in return the majins’ guarantee that Kagemitsu will be unbeatable in any warfare and become the lord protector of the entire Japan. Indeed, the boy is born without forty-eight body parts; Kagemitsu puts the neonate in a basket and floats him down a river.
Fortunately the infant is rescued by a physician named Jukai who, over the period of many years, devises many cunning prosthetics so that the boy–named Hyakkimaru (lit. One Hundred Ogre Boy) by Jukai–can function like a normal person. Also Hyakkimaru has many supernatural powers which allow him to see, talk, and hear, despite having no eyes, mouth, or ears.
Upon reaching adulthood, Hyakkimaru embarks on a journey to vanquish the forty-eight majins and reclaim his body parts; he is soon joined by Dororo, a precocious street urchin and self-styled “greatest thief in all of Japan.” Together, Hyakkimaru and Dororo travels the feudal Japan, helping the oppressed people and defeating the demons, in the hope that one day Hyakkimaru will win back all his body parts from the forty-eight majins.
Unfortunately, it’s a mediocre adaptation. It was made by Toho studios - the folks who brought us Godzilla - and while some of the cinematography and special effects are great, they also went for the guy-in-a-rubber-suit for some of the demons, which was just laughable. The main problem with the film is that it’s just all over the place: sometimes it seems goofy like a kids movie, other times the themes are for adults, and other times it’s fairly gruesome, but in a ridiculous way, like a horror movie for teenagers. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, it was also too long, with a number of tangential scenes that didn’t do much to advance the story.
It’s supposedly going to be released in the US at some point. If they edit it down by about 30 minutes and excise some of the blood n’ guts, it might do well as a PG-13 flick for early-teen boys (assuming they’re not turned off by subtitles).
Anyway, our enjoyment of the evening didn’t hinge on the quality of the movie. It was good to be out without the boys for a few hours, and to see yet another amazing aspect of Tokyo.
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[tags]Japan, Tokyo, Lalaport, Toyosu, Dororo[/tags]
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