Film: Rain Fall
Release date: 29th March 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 111 mins
Director: Max Mannix
Starring: Gary Oldman, Kippei Shiina, Kyoko Hasegawa, Misa Shimizu
Genre: Thriller
Studio: Momentum
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Rain Fall is an adaptation of author Barry Eisler’s best-selling debut book of the same name, featuring central character John Rain. Barry went on to pen a further five titles with Rain - the thrillers topping polls and gaining award recognition - but has this production done enough to suggest the series will continue as successfully on the big screen?
John Rain is a deadly assassin who specialises in kills which look like natural causes or unfortunate accidents.
He is hired to take out a corrupt businessman and retrieve a memory stick with vital information. The plan goes ahead but the victim doesn’t have the stick with him. Rain soon realises that there are others after the stick also, and he may have been set up. His only chance is to recover the information and find out why it is so valuable, but to do so he must keep the victim’s daughter alive.
Unfortunately for Rain, a CIA task-force led by Walter Holtzer (Gary Oldman) is on his trail…
There are two major differences between the literary and screen versions of John Rain. Firstly, the novels are written partly in first person, so the reader spends a lot of the time inside John Rain’s head. The film can’t show that perspective without a whole load of voice-overs. The second difference is that the screen version features a very stripped-down character. The literary version of John Rain is an expert in Judo, loves jazz music and has an affinity to expensive single-malt whiskey. Not only are those details put aside, but John Rain himself almost becomes a side character in his own film.
The reason for this is that Gary Oldman’s Holtzer not only runs the CIA operation, acting as ringmaster to the spy circus around him, but he also owns the film. Rain Fall is heavily influenced by the Jason Bourne movies – especially the Bourne Supremacy’s Waterloo Station scenes, with Holtzer and his men watching a bank of TV monitors and positioning agents. Oldman’s intensity makes these scenes work - nobody can bark orders like he can!
Kippei Shiina (Shinobi: Heart Under Blade) isn’t bad as John Rain. As I said, a lot of his background and characteristics are left to the side, but he makes for a sympathetic killer, especially as he doesn’t like to see innocents killed for no reason. It’s a pity that the action scenes are choppy, overly edited affairs. It’s quite jarring because Rain Fall switches film styles during fight scenes.
There are certain “establishing” shots in films which act as a short-cut for audiences to relate to a location. A film set in New York, for example, would have a shot of the Statue of Liberty, or one set in London would have a red double-decker bus driving round Piccadilly Circus. In Tokyo, there is the multi-directional crossing which seems to be busy regardless of time of day. Whilst Rain Fall does fall into that cliché, it makes amends with some other stunning photography by John Wareham, such as a bird’s eye view of the city at night. There is also a scene on a rooftop with the protagonists almost in silhouette against a giant yellow neon sign, and a conversation between Holzter and his number two overlooking a lake – the tranquil surroundings at odds with the bitterness of the conversation.
Rain Fall is a slow-burning thriller that requires a lot of patience, especially at the start, where it’s a little difficult to get your bearings as to what is going on (you can thank Gary Oldman for making sure we do know). The plot is quite complex, and it takes two scenes of exposition to set everything out – Akira Emoto plays Detective Tatsu, who is investigating John Rain’s assassinations, each of whom were politicians in the pocket of a yakuza boss, whilst Dirk Hunter plays a British journalist who explains to Rain why the CIA is involved. Both of these scenes tie nicely with the ending.
Imagine a Bourne movie which was predominantly set in the CIA/FBI side of the fence and spent little time with Jason Bourne, and that’s kind of the set-up here. It’s a shame because the literary version of John Rain is a very interesting character, and I think Kippei Shiina could have pulled it off. However, the film still works, mainly because of the excellent performances from Shiina, Oldman and Emoto. If they develop any more of the Rain books, I hope they will allow John Rain more of the limelight. MOW
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