TRAILER: Cinema Release: Norwegian Wood

Check out the trailer below for Norwegian Wood, which was released in cinemas on 11th March 2011.

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REVIEW: Cinema Release: Norwegian Wood

Film: Norwegian Wood
Release date: 11th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 133 mins
Director: Tran Anh Hung
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara, Reika Kirishima, Kengo Kora
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: Soda
Format: Cinema
Country: Japan

More than twenty years after Haruki Murakami’s novel was released, Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung has turned Norwegian Wood into a feature film. Long considered unfilmable due to its introspective nature and inner dialogues, it was a brave move for Tran to take it on – especially as Murakami (and his fans) are famously protective of his work. But after a long dialogue with the author, the movie was given the green light. Have Tran and his cast done justice to the source material?

Set in 1960s Japan, Norwegian Wood focuses on 19-year-old Toru Watanabe and his relationships with two different women – the excitable, expressive Midori and the inward-looking, melancholic Naoko.

Naoko was Toru's best friend Kizuki's girlfriend, until Kizuki committed suicide at the age of 17. That tragedy that has led to Naoko suffering a breakdown: a depression which has led to her seeking refuge in a quiet country sanatorium.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Watanabe begins a flirtatious friendship with fellow student Midori, leaving him to negotiate his way through two complicated and contrasting relationships…


Opening with a quiet montage of Toru (Kenichi Matsuyama), Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) and Kizuki (Kengo Kôra) playing pool and fooling around on a farm and eating an ice lolly, Tran quickly introduces the three central characters. That one of them will be almost entirely absent from the remainder of the movie, as Kizuki is seen committing a low-key and lonely suicide as he asphyxiates himself in his car (his presence permeates the action nonetheless). It’s an unusual way to begin a film, requiring little of the audience other than objective observation. With barely a hint of emotion expressed on screen, there is little opportunity to feel sympathy as might be expected. Instead, the audience is made immediately aware that the style of the film will be somewhat detached.

Central to the plot and style of the piece is Toru. He appears in almost every scene, yet barely seems to inhabit them. He’s something of a blank canvas, often expressionless and usually playing second fiddle to whichever other characters appear alongside him. It’s a strangely beguiling performance from Matsuyama, and he’s a likeable character despite doing very little in real terms. Instead, he provides the backdrop for the more intriguing performances which revolve around him.

The most interesting of these is Kiko Mizuhara as Midori. She’s certainly the most recognisably ‘normal’ character – lively, flirty and funny. Sadly, she’s underused and appears far too fleetingly. The same might also be said of Nagasawa (Tetsuji Tamayama). He’s enigmatic, interesting and amoral. Although his purpose is presumably to provide a moral barometer for Toru, the film would certainly have benefited by revealing more of him.

Although Toru’s relationships with Midori and Nagasawa are important, they play second fiddle to his dysfunctional friendship/courtship with Naoko. Following the suicide of Kizuki, Naoko has unravelled mentally. Following a tenderly filmed sex scene with Toru, she retreats into herself and eventually disappears to a country retreat where she lives a quiet life alongside roommate Reiko (Reika Kirishima). After a written correspondence with Toru, he eventually visits her to discuss where their future lies. The scenes between the two are beautifully shot, but ultimately hard to engage with. The dialogue is stiff, and the sense that there is any love between them is hard to believe given that it is only expressed vocally in very plain speech. Some explanation of their inner dialogues occurs by having them read out their letters as a voiceover, but a sense of true warmth and love between them still remains hard to swallow. It weakens the film enormously that the central relationship is so unbelievable.

What does work wonderfully well is the cinematography. Norwegian Wood is simply sumptuous to look at and has a clear artistic vision. Interior scenes are often shot in medium close-ups leading to a sense of claustrophobia – particularly in those scenes between Toru and Naoko. Tran also utilises very clear colour schemes, often bathing night time sets in just one colour – it’s unsubtle but beautiful. Interiors during daylight hours appear to be more naturally lit, utilising the daylight which streams in through the picturesque windows.

Exteriors are exquisitely shot. Wintry country scenes are framed fantastically and lush green countryside is displayed vibrantly. These beautiful vistas provide an instant and obvious contrast with the cluttered city sets of Tokyo. They are imbued, perhaps, with even more sadness as the camera lingers slowly and silently over vast expanses of emptiness. Such wonderful cinematography ensures that even in its more frustrating moments, Norwegian Wood remains extremely watchable.

Unfortunately, those frustrating moments occur too often. When translating a novel to the screen, one of the inherent dangers is that so much of what is written is not said (or at least said out loud). With Toru as the central character and commentator, Murakami’s novel has a depth and richness which is sadly lacking from Tran’s movie. It’s also a far more hurried version of the story with central characters marginalised to the point that their role in proceedings becomes puzzling – particularly Reiko’s surprising part in the story’s denouement.


Bringing Norwegian Wood to the silver screen was always likely to be challenging. And it’s a challenge which Tran Anh Hung only partially passed. His film is stylish and often visually stunning, yet lacks emotional depth despite some good acting performances. The plot moves inconsistently - too fast in parts, too slow in others - and ultimately characters’ motives are not as fully explored or explained as they might have been. Altogether, it’s an interesting yet flawed attempt. RW

NEWS: Cinema Release: Norwegian Wood

Published in 1987 and since translated into 33 languages, Norwegian Wood is a story of loss and heartbreak in a time of global instability.

Haruki Murakami’s bestselling novel is brought to the screen by Tran Anh Hung (Golden Lion winner for Cyclo and Academy Award nominee for The Scent Of Green Papaya) and features Japanese rising star Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note, Detroit Metal City) and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (BABEL), alongside newcomer Kiko Mizuhara.

Tokyo, the late 1960s. Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment and Toru Watanabe’s personal life is similarly in tumult. At heart, he is deeply devoted to his first love, Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their complex bond has been forged by the tragic death of their best friend years before.

Watanabe lives with the influence of death everywhere. That is, until Midori, a girl who is everything that Naoko is not – outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident – marches into his life and Watanabe must choose between his past and his future.

Film: Norwegian Wood
Release date: 11th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 133 mins
Director: Tran Anh Hung
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara, Reika Kirishima, Kengo Kora
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: Soda
Format: Cinema
Country: Japan

REVIEW: DVD Release: Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler

Film: Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler
Release date: 26th July 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 130 mins
Director: Tôya Satô
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yuriko Yoshitaka, Tarô Yamamoto
Genre: Thriller/Drama/Action
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler is adapted from Nobuyuki Fukukoto’s multi-million selling manga series Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji, and follows the fortunes of a down on his luck layabout coerced into entering a series of increasing bizarre games of chance.

Tatsuya Fujiwara (Death Note, Battle Royale) takes the lead role as Kaiji, a mid-twenties graduate seeking solace through alcohol, as he stumbles through life working in a dead-end job that fails to stimulate his mind or improve his social standing.

After another soul destroying day, he is visited by an attractive dark-haired debt collector named Endo (Yuki Amami) and informed that he is responsible, as acting guarantor, for a missing friend’s sizeable loan. The choice given to him is to spend the next decade trying, without any resources, to honour the loan payments, or to board the Espoir gambling cruise ship for a once in a lifetime opportunity to clear his debt and gain wealth beyond his wildest dreams.

Initially the game (“paper-rock-scissors”) seems like a straightforward three card contest based on little more than luck. However, strategy soon moves to the forefront when the contestants realise that their very lives are on the line. Many panic, plead and cheat, as dark personality traits emerge in a desperate frenzy of self-preservation. Unlike Steve McQueen in the Cincinnati Kid or Newman and Redford in The Sting, Kaiji is not a naturally gifted card player, yet he is different - he learns, he adapts and, after initially falling prey to an unsavoury trick, he develops a seemingly unbeatable tactical game plan.

However, the whole scenario is an elaborate con designed to force the men into a lifetime of servitude to a shadowy underworld organisation. Once under their control, Kaiji must risk everything and enter two further competitions or die a slow death caused by enforced manual labour...


Director Toya Sato, who started his career making shows for Nippon Television, spends an almost unbearable amount of time between the first gambling scenario and the second trying to set up a fairly simplistic idea: Gangsters need a labour force, con desperate men, offer some hope of freedom through high stack gambling games – simple. Yet, it takes half the movie to properly establish the plot. It is certainly a case of less would have been more; as cutting thirty minutes from the dull opening half would have improved the over feel and pace of the movie.

At times, Toyo Sato seems to think he still has the luxury of his television background by setting aside a sizeable chunk of the movie’s running length attempting and failing to properly develop the characters. Kaiji begins and ends the movie as a good intentioned yet annoying character; Tonegawa (Teruyuki Kagawa) the right hand man to a one dimensional white bearded gangster leader is nothing more than cartoon character bad guy; and with one exception (Endo), there are no substantial character arcs. Even then, Endo’s morph from ‘baddy’ to ‘goody’, and partially back again, is clearly signposted.

The actors often overact to the point of distraction, while the director appears to show a lack of confidence in their ability by utilising internal monologues to display emotion rather than subtle facial expressions. This method is detrimental to the otherwise rollercoaster pace of the movie’s keenly crafted second half, which is kick-started into life by a genuinely tense race between two hotels on a suspended steel beam during a thunder storm. From this scenario onwards, Toya Sato plays to his strengths, and an underlying talent comes to the fore.

The final gambling scenes are exciting and uniquely executed with intelligent camerawork emphasising the heightened emotion, as it shifts between characters, picking up each facial tick and psychological nuance from actors now, thankfully, well and truly reeled in by a director relishing in his task. Second guessing tricks and tactics becomes a joy during a finale that is the epitome of fingernail biting edge-of-your-seat cinema.


If you can survive the ill-judged opening salvo this develops into an exciting piece of throwaway moviemaking. MG