Battle Royale - The Movie

So I finally got to see the movie of this epic book and I have to say that even though the movie was good, I prefer the book. Though that is usually how it works out is it? As what usually happens with movies made out of books the plot line needs to be simplified so it is more linear and shorter. However I missed the suspense of knowing what is going on all over the island and yelling at characters not to trust people you know are killers. The movie was great because you saw all the action acted out, but I missed the mind games. A part of me wants this to be made in the U.S. with Quentin Tarantino as the director because I think he would be able to make it epic. Oddly enough on of the characters, Takako Chigusa, was played by Chiaki Kuriyama who was in the first Kill Bill as Gogo Yubari. In both movies she plays a total badass. 

As for the other characters they all basically looked how I pictured them expect for Shogo Kawada, who was a lot hotter then I pictured him, and the program director who in the movie was named Kitano-sensei. Since Shogo was very close to being my favorite male character in the book I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was so good looking and the same was true with Hiroki Sugimura who was my favorite.  

*It was hard to find a good picture of Shogo, but watch the movie he is sexy*



The only thing that really annoyed me was how freaking whiny Shuya was. It seemed like every three seconds he was crying about one thing or another, which wasn't how he was in the book. Also they really played down how horrible the government was as well as how important Rock and Roll was to Shuya so I was a little disappointing about that. However Noriko was just as awesome in both, calm, quiet, and strong.

 

Overall the movie is extremly entertaining and though it differs from the book it is still close enough to capture the book lovers as well as have a storyline of its own. I didn't know how I felt about not having the program director be a complete and utter bastard, but in the end I liked it because it added something new to the story line. I would give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Doctor Who Series 1 - Fantastic

So I have just finished the first series of Doctor Who for the second time and it is, in a word, fantastic! My aunt was the one who really got me into Doctor Who and I am very glad she did. It is the perfect mixture of humor, action and drama for me and every episode brings a mix of emotions. It just added to the list of impossible things that I want to happen, like my letter from Hogwarts, the TARDIS and the Doctor appearing out of nowhere and going traveling with him. There is just something about seeing the past, present, and future that appeals so much to me, and obviously to thousands of other people. 

Now the 9th doctor Christopher Eccleston actually had to grow on me. My aunt is a huge fan of David Tennant, who it the 10th doctor, so to see someone who wasn't him playing the doctor was a bit weird, but I ended up loving him. He is smart, sweet, bad ass, and totally fits his catch phrase, fantastic. 

Rose took some time to grow on me as well, at first I found her annoying. The first episode almost made me stop watching, but slowly she grew on me. I think Billie Pipper is beautiful and her voice is wonderful, I am going to be sad when she is no longer with the doctor, but I have heard wonderful things about the other companions. I also loved almost all of the outfits that they put her in, I want the TARDIS wardrobe please and thank you. Her relationship with Mickey was kind of annoying as well, I was never convinced that she was in love with him, but Mickey and the doctors back and forth was wonderful. 

And then there is Captain Jack Harkness, who is kind of sex on legs and will have sex with anything that has legs...maybe if they don't depending. I love his character and I am so excited to see that he appears through out the other series as well as Torchwood, which I might watch. He also shows up in my favorite episodes in the first series. 

"Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" are my favorite episodes, well "The Doctor Dances" is my favorite but it is a continuation of "Empty Child". I have always been interested in World War II which is the time period that it is set. Just everything about it I love, and yes the first episode is creepy as anything with scary children, but it has a happy ending and I am all about happy endings. It also had my favorite line after "fantastic", which is "Just this once, everybody loves!" 

*****SPOILER ALERT******

I guess I should have done this before, but if you don't want to know the end don't read further

The first series is wonderful, the last episode made me bawl like the teenage girl I am and I didn't want to see him go. I was so happy when they finally kissed, but I knew it was the end so it was so bitter sweet and lovely. I have no idea what I am going to do for the end of the other series, I might need to buy tissues in bulk.  Doctor Who is a wonderful series and really does have something for everyone. I highly recommend it even if you don't like Science Fiction television shows.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac Take 2

After watching and falling in love with the movie, my friend (the same one who showed me the movie as well as Battle Royale) let me borrow the novel written by Gabrielle Zevin.

Now I was extremely pleased as well as surprised to see just how close the Japanese movie of the same title followed the novel (for movie see other post) Because I have already made a post about the movie I didn't want to just repeat myself so I am going to focus on the differences between the two because sometimes what is changed is just as interesting as what wasn't. Of course there were a few name changes. Mirai in the movie is William in the novel and Yuji is James, but the personalities are the same. I also want to give a lot of credit to the casting director for picking almost perfect actors for the roles. Other major changes:

1. Naomi is adopted and her mother is still alive. The fact that she was an orphan is pulled through the novel much as the picture motif is pulled through the movie. I don't whether it was because of time constraints or not wanting to have another subplot why they didn't keep Naomi's mother, but I can't say she was overly missed from the movie. It was an interesting part of the book, but it was more filler then anything else and just adds more stuff cluttering up Naomi's life. 

2. Naomi doesn't use the project of throwing the camera's down the stairs as her final project. I thought it was really interesting that they used this project of thinking up another one after seeing that Naomi used a project about her adoption as her final project. I guess it fit with the pictures idea, but I also think it would have been really interesting to see what they could have come up with as an alternative project. Again I am thinking time constraints and the need to keep the plot linear for cinematic sake is probably why the stairs project stayed. 

3. More in depth about William's family as well as his and Naomi's friendship. I really loved how this was more filled out in the book. In the movie we are told that they are best friends, but the novel really shows this through both dialogue as well as Naomi's internal monologue. A part that I really loved was the record player that she got him to play his father's albums on. The fact that we get to know more about Will lets us know more about Naomi. I just loved their friendship and really want something like this in my life. 

4. Naomi's dad plays a much bigger part in the novel then in the movie. He is a semi-famous writer who wrote books which Naomi's mother took the photographs for. I liked that he was more involved in the book then just showing up once or twice. His and Naomi's relationship also adds a lot to the overall story line as well as his fiance Rosa Rivera and Naomi adjusting to her. I don't know why I found this more important then Naomi's mother story line, but I did. Maybe I was just partial to her dad. 

Another awesome thing about the book is that the author included a list of songs that Will put on the mixes for Naomi. I always like to know what the author had in mind when they vaguely hint at a song or group or when the mention the song and I have never heard it before, which was 99% of the songs. I always listen to music while I write so I love to see what other authors get their inspiration from musically. 

I also just really loved Zevin's style of writing. It was easy to read yet had a sort of poetry to it. She also has so many good, quotable lines. Her characters were believable and likable, but not perfect or annoying. You find yourself in love with James though also a little leery of him. You love Will, but don't completely understand him. You fight with and for Naomi though at times you can't understand how she could be so stupid. Her imagery was perfect, not too much and not too little and she always paid attention to detail when it mattered, like Will's odd clothes. I just loved everything about this book. It gets 5 out of 5 stars.  

Goong

A friend of mine pushed and shoved me until I watched and finished this drama. It took me a while to get into it, but I am glad that I kept watching it because is slowly made its way into my heart. I think it might have been that in the beginning I had a hard time relating to any of the characters, but as the show progressed they became a lot more lovable and believable. It isn't going to be at the top of my drama list or anything, but at the end I did cry which for me shows that it struck some nerve. I felt as if the relationship between Shin and Chae Kyung could have been developed a lot more, but they still had chemistry. I did find myself a lot of times throughout the drama almost wanting to punch the screen however. I found a lot of the show frustrating and not in a way that made you want to watch more. It took me quite a long time to finish this drama unlike Shining Inheritance and Boys Before Flowers. I just felt that there was no major climax so even when we were at the last few episodes I wasn't finding myself wanting to watch the next episode to make sure it all turned out well in the end.

I have to admit that I didn't like the heroine Chae Kyung at the beginning of the drama. I found her annoying, but her reactions to the situation were a lot more realistic then Jan Di (Boys Before Flowers) and Eun Sung (Shining Inheritance). A reason you love Eun Sung is because she is so strong, but normal people don't have that sort of perseverance. True Chae Kyung is a little more childish then most people would be when they are force to marry a Crown Prince, but her reactions to Palace life are very typical of what a normal girl would feel. Though I got annoyed with her crying or over reactions I found her believable which is made her hardships all the more emotional, though a lot of the times they could have easily been fixed. 

Once again I fell for the "Other Guy" who is Prince Lee Yul. I found him more attractive as well as a complete sweetheart compared to Shin. Much like the other dramas I watched the lead male worked his way into my heart, but my first "crush" was on the other male lead. I guess that shows good writing though since that is what the director wants you to do usually. As the drama progressed I still loved him, but his character was much too weak in my opinion and after a while he got slightly annoying because he just said the same thing over and over again.

In contrast I found Shin to be too ridged a character. It is alright for the male to hide his feelings, but I felt as if this series went far too long before actually making the relationship "real". You just wait and wait and wait and it gets to the point where you just want to scream at them. I liked Shin and I know that he was supposed to play the arrogant crown prince, but there is a point where it was a little too much and they got very close a couple of times to crossing it. However the one thing that did really impress me was the kissing scene. OMG IT WAS MORE THEN THREE SECONDS. I was really glad that after waiting so freaking long it was an intense scene.   

Overall I think that it is for sure worth a watch if you have time, but it isn't something that I think needs to be watched ASAP. I give it a 3 out of 5. Even though I loved the Queen Mother as well as Princess Hye-myung, Chae Kyung's friends besides Kang-hyun where extremely annoying and the plot wasn't especially driven.

Battle Royale

This book was recommendation from a friend of mine (she is also the friend that recommended Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac) and once again I am a fan of her pick. I have only read the novel, but there is also a manga as well as a movie made that I plan on watching and reading very soon. The whole premise of the story is a little bizarre, but easy enough to understand, a class of 42 students are left on an island and have to kill each other until only one survives. This is a program that is run by the government that is said to help national defenses, but it is just a way for the government to exert it's power over the people and keep them from rebelling. The book is set in Japan, which is called the Republic of Eastern Asia and is a totalitarian government. You follow mostly the struggle of Shogo Kawada, Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa to survive in the game, but you also gets glimpse into other characters head and there are a few other subplots going on. This was probably my favorite aspect of the book because I love books that let you see the same event through different perspectives.

Koushun Takami however didn't just makes this a blood and guts book, though there is more then enough of that to go around, but he also dives into so many back stories that it makes each chapter interesting and it helps the reader connect with characters even if it is only for a few pages. You get to see all the different spectrum of the game through these different characters and I am really impressed with how the situation is seen in all these lights. You have the totally scared and terrified students, the ones trying to save everyone, and then those that are participating in the game because they have already given up on others and the world. As someone who plans on majoring in fiction writing it was really interesting for me to see him effectively write so many different personalities.

Oddly enough I didn't feel overly connected to a lot of the characters as I have in some of the other novels I have read. You feel for all of them, but maybe because you are always switching from person to person I didn't connect instantly with one person. I did however come up with a few favorites. My two favorite guy characters had to be Hiroki Sugimura and Shogo Kawada. Hiroki was very true to his thoughts and personality throughout the whole novel and thought I was very sad when he died, I was happy that he finally accomplished what he had been trying to do the whole game, which was finding Kayoko Kotohiki. Though I was sad he died, I found his death oddly peaceful in a way. Shogo Kawada was just a badass and a good guy which is what made him my favorite over Kazuo Kiriyama who was just a badass. The fact that Shogo takes care of Shuya and Noriko. He was smart and talented and at the end of the novel I realized just how much I loved him as a character. My two favorite female characters had to be Noriko Nakagawa and Yukie Utsumi. Noriko is such a strong character through out the novel even though she isn't as fierce as a lot of the other female characters. She is the rock of the little group and is always usually the voice of reason for the boys. She is observant and smart though she is quite. She also killed Kazuo which instantly made her my favorite. Yukie is my second favorite because I related to her a lot more then the other characters in the novel. She is smart and loyal and tries, even though it backfires, to save her friends. She also saves the man she loves even if it is against her friends wishes. I really wish she was in novel more because she is so interesting and likable.

Now you can't read this book, or at least I couldn't, without thinking about what I would do if I was in this situation. I came to the scary conclusion that I would probably kill one of my classmates in order to survive. I wouldn't go out of my way to find them and kill them, but if it was between me and them I would pick me. My whole attitude would also depend on what weapon I received. If I had a gun then I would find somewhere to sit and pray that everyone else just killed each other off, though if I had a close friend or boyfriend this might change. The character I think I would act most like is probably either Yukie or Kayoko. If I had a group of good friends that I could trust I would find a few of them and hide out, though that backfired I would try to run things or I would hide by myself for the entire game in complete and utter fear by myself.

The fact that I think I would take someones life is really kind of scary, but this is the kind of questions that the novel wants to bring up. Under the entertaining and thrilling story of these kids killing one another it is also dealing with so many deep issues like the power of the government and human nature. I highly recommend