I watched it last night and sort of kicking myself for not watching the rental I got a few weeks ago. Oh well. 
It was the familiar story of roughly the first half of Death Note told very differently. Having read the manga or seen the anime is no reason to skip the live action, because it's different enough that if interested, you'll see an alternate telling of the story.
Just some random stuff that occurred to me while watching it:
Naomi Misora was in it, chasing down Raye's killer, but her part of the story was much different, and her end ended the first movie.
I liked the casting, especially for Light and Soichiro. Ken'ichi Matsuyama was terrific as L, but they really should have messed his hair up for that part. 
I thought Takeshi Taga was great as Soichiro, but he was reminding me so much of Edward James Olmos. Anyone here ever watch Miami Vice? I would say Soichiro had a very definite Lt. Castillo vibe, especially in his physicality (the hair too). He's not nearly as emotional as the man in the manga or anime, so we didn't get to see any of his outbursts.
The task force had very litle to do and there was only one Matsuda moment: Light kills Lind L Taylor, then L reveals the trick. The big task force at the NPA are watching and Matsuda stands up, points to the screen and yells out "AWESOME!" "MATSUDA! This is serious, watch your mouth!" Other than that, he has a few things to say, but his character has been kind of stripped down, a lot like they did with Aizawa's.
The task force working with L has a chick on board. No idea who she is, but she's getting some of Matsuda's lines. There was one scene where L is sitting in the chair talking and his task force is standing in a group watching and listening. The girl was in the back behind the guys - you could only see the top of her head over the guys' shoulders. That kind of had me on the floor rolling. But what's she doing there? They put a girl on the team for the sake of having a girl? Nothing against the actress playing her, but why?
One thing I liked, they had a couple of scenes where L is up all night working and task force members are sacked out all over the floor.
Ryuk was very cool! They did a great job with that character and I was glad to hear Shidou Nakamura's voice again. His voice was processed, so he didn't sound like he was in the same room as everyone else. The character looked like he was actually part of the scene, but my only problem with him was that way too often he moved like a puppet. All I could think of was 'marionett.' They changed his character a little bit too - towards the end of the movie, Light kills his girlfriend to get close to L and Ryuk definitely expresses an opinion about that. "Devil in disguise" and "you're worse than a shinigami" kind of surprised me. Ryuk was pissed and very sympathetic towards the girlfriend. The Ryuk we know from the manga and anime doesn't give a poo about anyone. I thought that was interesting.
And I love how they ended it, L shows up at the scene where Naomi Misora and Light's girlfriend died, eating the same potato chips Light was eating while the cameras were in his house. I thought that was brilliant. I have to say L can eat an epic potato chip just like Light.
This was the blu ray release and I thought the audio was really good in this - it made use of all my speakers, so it had good surround. And of course the video looked really sharp and clean too.
Because this is a retelling, I can't wait to watch the second movie to see how it's going to end. I know it'll end up a lot like the anime and manga did (and I did get spoiled about who dies and who doesn't), so seeing how they get to the end will be fun.
Afrokuma wrote:I really liked these movies if you get the second one and like it to then I would suggest you get Death Note save the worLd. I own then all and can't say why but watch them all the time. The save the worLd one is a movie all about L defiantly my favorite out of them all. If you were asking me I would say get them all if you liked the first the collections badass to watch.
Wow, good to know! I expect I will be getting this - I have all the other DVDs, I want my collection to be complete.
I hear they did a live action one shot that isn't on DVD that was release only in Japan that took place maybe a year or three after the series ended that was more or less about Matsuda coming to terms with Light's death. That's what I heard. I should try hunting it on youtube, some lovely fan went and subbed then uploaded in three parts session XX of Cowboy Bebop, I can hope that if this exists that it was subbed and uploaded as well.
True, I would be more interested in the animated version of this particular story, but either way, I want to see it.
Bad_Witch wrote:I don't think it's as simple as that. Sure, L is a liar but he still needed someone Kira couldn't kill while setting the whole thing up. He needed to fly in the criminal, set up the news cast, and actually put on the show. Not to mention the amount of time to find the right criminal and make the deal (which I think included Taylor getting off scot free if Kira didn't kill him).
It couldn't be any criminal that was in any way made public, or Kira might kill him before the broadcast, or even in the middle of it before Taylor's big reveal as "L". Plus, L would have wanted to make sure that Kira wouldn't/couldn't kill the criminal before his plan happened. If there was even the slightest chance that Kira could have gotten the information before hand, L wouldn't have been able to move forward like he did.
Whick brings me back to my original question...what crime was so bad that Taylor ended up on death row, yet was still kept out of the papers for his arrest? Or even police reports?
Was the guy even in Japan? Or was he being broadcast from somewhere else (like the US)? I ask because I don't think they said that the guy was in Japan, just that his words were being broadcast in Japan. I'm really asking, I haven't seen the episode in about a week and that's not something I paid that much attention to.
People are being condemned for murder (maybe he killed a cop 10 years previous) that don't make national news, much less overseas. If this guy was one of those cases, a murder he committed, say, a dozen years ago that didn't get national publicity much less international coverage, there would be no way Kira could know.
He saw a guy on tv named Lind L Taylor who said he was L. Why would anyone flip on the computer and do a search of police reports? I think Light was more interested in showing up L by killing him while he was on the air than checking to see if this "L" was really a convicted criminal. That wouldn't make any kind of sense at all to me.
Yeah. You're right, good point.
He certainly couldn't be someone that Light/Kira recognised either. And if the guy was an American (like he obviously was in the movie), it's pretty certain that Light wouldn't have recognised him, especialy if he had been in prison for several years.
But, whether he was arrested, tried and convicted in "secret" is highly doubtful. L is a big fat liar, so who the heck knows?
If Kira could have recognized "L" that would have thrown the whole plan out the window I can see Light standing in front of the t.v. going "What the hell is this?" "Is he serious?"
I don't know about being highly doubtful. Arresting and convicting someone in this world in secret wouldn't be difficult. The crime of the person woud be known, but who did it might not. There are plenty of unsolved crimes and a few of them might actually be solved. Perhaps Taylor was an heir to a vast fortune/influential family/etc and his family paid to keep the embarrisment out of the papers. I can see that happening in this world easily. With in the Death Note world it could be even easier. L never seemed to care about justice...especially the rules defining it. If L caught him and he could be sure he was locked up, what would he care about the papers.
I should note here that even though I'm saying L...I don't mean Taylor's case was necessarily L's. In fact, in this scenerio, I'm sure it wouldn't have been since L has solved every case he took. L could have used the name Coil or Denueve to catch Taylor.
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