#ninzu no machi

[bleuskais]

Watching Ninzu no Machi (The Town of Headcounts)

Continuing the theme of seeing Nakamura Tomoya everywhere, I recently came upon this movie about a town that takes in the degenerates of society.

Honestly the idea of the town is pretty interesting. These degenerates are rehoused in the town and is given food, shelter and recreation in return for being basically Amazon Mechanical Turk Turkers in real life. They write fake product reviews and social media posts. They assume different disguises to vote for predetermined election results under other people's names (basically the election fraud MURIKA! is worried about). They take part in public protests and staged mass shootings for fake news reports.

The catch is their identity is erased once they sign away their lives to live in the town. No record of their existence remains even if they manage to escape the perimeter of the town. And think about how hard it is to get a job or a place to live if you have no ID and any school or employment records.

The first half of the film feels like a student film. The cinematography, the set design, the directing and especially the acting. It gave me very film school final year project vibes... Don't get me wrong. I'm not disparaging film school short films. I enjoy them a lot but there's only so much the initial idea could fill out. So the second half of the movie was about a sister who signed her life away to enter the town in order to find her missing sister and niece.

The protagonist inexplicably falls in love with the sister. The sister has no idea whether she loves the protagonist or not but she kisses him anyway. I thought I was gonna get an asexual rep for a second. How foolish of me. They escaped with her niece and was on the run for a while and suddenly she gets pregnant. What? I know... *obligatory "I'm pregnant" eyeroll* She ends up in the hospital and without IDs and insurance, they were gonna get into trouble again. Suddenly Paul the Tutor appears, saying they've been keeping tabs on them the whole time they were on the run. Told the protagonist he could go to another town and go back to their previous arrangement. And then we smash cut to the protagonist becoming a Tutor for the town.

I had so many questions at the end of the movie. Like, how did they get out of their situation? Did the protagonist take over the role of Tutor from Paul? Did he kill Paul?! Did he sign on as Tutor to get out of the situation they found themselves in? Why did the protagonist leave behind the second controller when he left for his work? Does he not need it now that he's a Tutor?

Honestly, the only ones who turned in good acting was Nakamura Tomoya (protagonist), Ishibashi Shizuka (sister) & Yamanaka So (Paul the Tutor). I wish we had more scenes with Yamanako So. He's got an interesting voice. And Ishibashi only showed up halfway through the movie. It's too bad they didn't get her in sooner. I would've been invested earlier lol

[artforiasenibudayajepang]

5 Film Serial Jepang Terbaru Akan Hadir Di Netflix April 2022

5 Film Serial Jepang Terbaru Akan Hadir Di Netflix April 2022

Berita Film Jepang – Jadi kabar baiknya adalah ‘Alice in Borderland‘ baru saja menyelesaikan syuting musim keduanya. Berita buruknya adalah episode baru tidak akan dirilis hingga Desember, tetapi tidak apa-apa karena kami memiliki banyak judul baru yang akan datang musim semi ini. Nantikan film dan acara TV Jepang ini di Netflix pada bulan April yang semuanya tentang mengambil bola kurva…

[genkinahito]

Japanese Films at the Vancouver International Film Festival 2021

Japanese Films at the Vancouver International Film Festival 2021 @VIFFest #VIFF2021 Oct 1-11.

The Vancouver International Film Festival 2021 (VIFF) runs from October 01st to October 11th and there are five feature films which will be screened in cinemas. Here’s the round-up of Japanese films. (more…)

[genkinahito]

The Brightest Roof in the Universe, Ninzu no Machi, Restart After Come Back Home, Kiss Cam! COME ON KISS ME AGAIN!, Denen Boys, Reframe THEATER EXPERIENCE with you, The Sleeping Insect, Meg Lion, Daibutsu Kaikoku The Great Buddha Arrival Japanese Film Trailers Happy weekend, everyone. We made it to another one and thank you for joining me here.