Space Battleship Yamato (2010 film)

Space Battleship Yamato (2010 film)
SPACE BATTLESHIP ヤマト

Directed by Takashi Yamazaki
Screenplay by Shimako Sato
Music by Naoki Sato, Hiroshi Miyagawa
Cinematography Kôzô Shibasaki
Studio Toho, Japan
Release date in Japan: 2010/12/01
Running time: 131 minutes
Starring: Takuya Kimura as Susumu Kodai, Meisa Kuroki as Yuki Mori, Toshirō Yanagiba as Shirō Sanada, Naoto Ogata as Daisuke Shima, Reiko Takashima as Dr. Sado, Toshiyuki Nishida as Hikozaemon Tokugawa, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi as Hajime Saitō, etc.

- Spoilers alert! –

After Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), this sheer pleasure of 'monster movie' with joyful monsters and sexual alien evil in the person of Kazuki Kitamura, I decided to watch some more Japanese movies as far as this one was no doubt one of the best comedies I've ever seen.

Prepared such way and being familiar with actor Kimura Takuya, but haven't seen any Yamato anime series and haven't read any Yamato mangas yet, I started watching.

I love space operas, I'm a proud fan of Star Wars (4, 5, 6), I'm even a space craft design engineer myself with honored diploma. So that was my film. Space views, battles, ship inside interiors, I love them all. Alas, there are some troubles with physics in the movie. And the brilliant final episode when our proud hero's looking ahead, ready to become a kamikaze, and the wind is blowing into his face, waving his hear… Romantic, but absolutely unbelievable: wind? inside the battleship? in the space? Dears, it's epic!

Well, in general it's a live action film about courage, honor, hope and hard decisions. Earth is under alien attack. It's almost dead, and the only hope for humanity is battleship Yamato, named after the real ship, created in Japan for WWII (well, this prototype didn't make any weather during war and was destroyed the most no heroic way actually). Crew must go to Iskandar, a planet far in space, where panacea against radiation is believed to be. Old captain is ill, and Susumu Kodai (Kimura), young, uncertain and with some gloomy past, became his successor. He has love-hate relations with ace pilot Yuki Mori (Kuroki).

I love details in the film: doctor's cat, sake a la trois, captain (I love him, just love him, he's an example of true olds school captain) and his mini garden, etc., etc.

Kimura Takuya is not the best actor ever, but he really does his best in this film. I know him after Moonlight Lovers and Long Vacation doramas, and I was afraid, he knew just two basic faces (well, in Long Vacations he was young, fresh and with more faces). No, he doesn't. There were some good moments with him. And beside that he's very handsome too.


The end of the film made me sobbing a little. I knew, Japanese wouldn't make a happy end, but I thought Yuki Mori would die, not Kodai. But he did, crucifying himself in the name of humanity. It's good end of good hero in such circumstances, I believe. And there IS a happy end, when we see titles and saved Earth. Impossible mission completed.


Links: buncheness.blogspot.com, Wiki.