Anime continues its global takeover, and Look Back Live-Action Film Review is the latest title making waves. Whether you follow the manga, the anime, or both, this news changes the picture in a big way.
The Story So Far
Look Back is a perfectly devastating manga volume that already received an excellent anime movie two years ago, so I understand if you're questioning the need to retell the same narrative in live action. This fresh adaptation, written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda and premiering at the Venice and Toronto International movie Festivals the week of its Japanese arrival, is the weakest of the three Look Backs, but it's still the same great narrative and finds just enough advantages to its fresh medium to justify another version.
Honestly, what had me most curious about the fresh movie wasn't seeing the narrative in live-action (that's easy enough to imagine for a realistic drama) but seeing how it would be expanded to feature length. The manga's short, and the anime was able to adapt the whole thing in less than an hour, so fleshing it out to 100 minutes guaranteed it wouldn't be the same experience.
Kore-eda has expanded the narrative by spending more time on the manga-making process. Watching drawings of characters being drawn is a neat magic trick for the anime, but watching real people draw β and not passing by such moments so quickly in montage β carries its own interest. Fujino and Kyomoto talk more about their narrative ideas here, both with each other and with their editor, giving us a better idea of what βShark Kickβ is like beyond the broad implication of a Chainsaw Man stand-in.
Their sources of inspiration are also touched upon more, in terms of both life experiences and pop culture touchstones (I'm sure pointed out cinephile Tatsuki Fujimoto is pleased to see an adaptation of his work with direct shout-outs to Nosferatu, Jaws, and My Neighbor Totoro). All of these additions make sense, but in adding so much, Kore-eda's Look Back loses some of the punchiness of the original work.
Despite not being that long as movies go, it feels slow. Maybe it's a side-effect of this being the third version of this narrative I've seen (I feel like I'll need to read reactions from newcomers to properly judge its effectiveness), but for the most part, this doesn't successful as strongly for me. Even in a realistic narrative, some things work better in animation than in live action.
The anime and manga had a way of making moments legendary because you could feel every emotion in the illustrations. Senzo Ueno's cinematography is gorgeous, with scenic wide shots of nature and a bright color palette creating an intense contrast with the final act's turn to darkness, but you just don't feel the same force when you see actors run with major emotions as you do in the drawn versions.
Without the effort and expression of such drawings, the movie instead tries to lend those small but legendary moments their grandiosity through YΕ«ta BandΕ's score β which is great β and the occasional use of slow motion for emphasis β which is kind of cheesy. Also cheesy in live-action: the switchover between actors.
The actual children playing elementary school-agβ¦
As the story continues to develop, TeraMovies will keep you updated with every new detail. Until then, this remains one of the most closely watched entertainment stories of the week β and the conversation is only getting started.
