Eiga: Kurosagi

Instead of resolving the thematic content of the television series, which is the nature and role of justice, Eiga: Kurosagi takes several steps backwards.

We see no discussion of Tsurara's incentive to make a choice upon whether to change her vision of justice nor do we see Kurosaki evolving in his senses. Indeed, it seems at times as if Episode 11 of the series has not even taken place. For example, Kurosaki calls Yoshikawa "Yoshida" when in the final episode he has recognizes her respectfully and stops deliberately getting her name wrong. In the movie he is back to treating her like a nuisance.

Indeed, Maki Horikita as Tsurara Yoshikawa is extremely underused in this film. She is resigned to the role of observer and has no bearing on the outcome of the plot. This is part of why the movie suffers. The series was built around the contrast of vigilante justice or revenge vs the legal system as the arbiter of justice. Tsurara and Kurosaki are contrasts, with Katsuragi and Detective Kashima Masaru as the extreme examples on both sides. Instead the film focuses on only one side, the relationship between Kurosaki and Katsuragi. While it is important that this relationship is resolved at some point, it is only compelling as a sub-plot in the T.V series, and doesn't work as the main story focus of a movie:

"Eiga: Kurosagi" uses a revolving contrast to the death of Julius Caesar, with Katsuragi and Kurosaki discussing Brutus' betrayal of the ancient Roman emperor. However, it is foggy as to what the relationship of this metaphor is to the characters. Katsuragi says, "Then you tell me, how would you respond if a person you trusted betrayed you?" when at this point, we have no reason to believe Kurosaki trusts Katsuragi. He doesn't actually show sympathy for the old man until the end of the film, after he has obtained certain knowledge about his past. Until that point, Kurosaki is only using Kat to thin the ranks of swindlers until he can defeat Mikimoto, which is main plot of the whole television series.

Complicating matters is a drawn out introduction that lacks motivation. It is designed to be fun but is not entertaining. I understand that some people may watch the movie that have not watched the series and perhaps that is helpful for them, but a literal explanation of Kurosaki's role and relationship to other characters would have been best explained by action and events and not talk. As it is shown, it only seems to slow the pacing of movie, and the whole film suffers for it. It is also difficult to imagine watching the film as removed from the jdorama series anyway, so this effort seems wasted. Time spent on the introduction could have been better used solidifying the roles of other characters. For example, a simple meeting between Kashima and Kurosaki at the beginning of the film would have made more sense.

The main plot revolves around a little girl who needs a heart transplant, and her mothers efforts to get the money needed to pay for it. Somehow a swindler has gotten his hands on her savings and she is now unable to pay for for the operation. Obviously, Kurosaki gets involved and comes to recognize that the mother is only one of many victims of the same swindler.

The film updates a clock lay-over towards the end as if to as if to update the audience of a countdown to a plot event. However, the clock is a cheap device to create suspense and it backfires. This is also the case for a dream-sequence/commercial Kurosaki gives to explain how his money-card system works to other swindlers. That kind of stuff can fly on television, but not on the big screen.

There are a few positives in the film. Takenaka Naoto is great as "white swindler" Ishigaki, doing his best film work since 2002's "Ping Pong". When Maki does get screen time, she steals every moment of it. It's amusing to see that Kurosaki has a car in the film and can actually drive, instead of walking everywhere like he does in the television series.

It's also nice to see Katsuragi someplace other than inside his bar for once. Yamapi is acceptable as Kurosaki, effectively playing down his catch-phrases and idol status, taking the role more seriously instead of reverting to nervously gulping over and over again as he does in his other roles.

I could go on, but the question remains: If you are not going to bring the story to a thematic conclusion, or at least add logically to the course of events, why bother making the film? The ending attempts to refocus things back to the main story arc, but you can't deny what came in the two hours before was confusing, poorly edited and not compelling. The swindled mother and daughter are not given enough screen time, so when we finally reach the would-be tearful climax of the movie, it lacks the appropriate emotional impact.

The reality is that any episode of Kurosagi would have served as a better big-screen basis than this idea. Overall, this film is an embarrassment to the solid original manga and especially to the exceptional television series. Unfortunately, for those who liked the jdorama, you have no choice but to watch the film anyway: a door is left open again, for a sequel or second season.

This work is grounded closely upon a popular 2006 Japanese television series, KUROSAGI, and casts its lead actor from the series, Tomohisa Yamashita, for his initial feature starring role. It is a somewhat stolid transcription from the source set, that in turn is based upon a successful manga also named "Kurosagi", created by Takeshi Natsuhara, designer of many similar cartoonish melodramas. Three types of confidence swindlers are defined at the beginning of the narrative: Shirosagi, or "white", whose greedy quarries are targeted fully for monetary purposes; Akasagi, "red", those who lure their marks through blandishments of the opposite sex; and Kurosagi, "black", who feast upon the other two categories. Yamashita plays as Kurosaki, a young man who has joined the ranks of kurosagi in order to victimize other black swindlers as means of completing symbolic acts of revenge. His desire for retribution is due to the ruination of his family by kurosagi only a few years prior. After being reduced financially by a kurosagi scam, Kurosaki's father killed his wife, daughter, and himself. As result, Kurosaki has spared no efforts toward the swindling of other kurosagi, along with the subsequent return of all monies to the prey. One particularly ironic element that dominates the story has Kurosaki purchasing information that he requires for the manipulation of his kurosagi victims from a master con man known as "The Fixer", Toshio Katsuragi (Tsutomo Yamazaki), in return for a thin percentage of the profits. Katsuragi is also the planner behind many of Kurosaki's capers, additionally becoming a father figure of sorts to the young man, bizarre by and large as the same Toshio is the man responsible for the destruction of his family! As might be expected, other characters are retained from the single season television series, including Masaru Kashima (Shô Aikawa) an assistant police inspector of Eastern Tokyo's Intellectual Crimes Division, who is fixated upon bringing Kurosaki to justice; and several from the distaff side, markedly a youthful law student, Tsurara Yoshikawa (Maki Horikita), with whom Kurosaki plainly is enthralled. A large segment of the film depicts Kurosaki in his endeavours to entrap an adroit corporate fraud artist, Tetsu Ishigaki (Naoto Takenaka), whose usual scamming method involves the cunning usage of a counterfeit corporate seal along with promissory notes, and who has actually damaged the nation's international financial standing with one of his ploys. At the same time that he is stalking Ishigaki, he becomes aware that Katsuragi is the one who is culpable for his family's tragedy. He must then determine whether or not to slay a man who has become a type of surrogate father to him. The film opens with a text frame that displays lines from Act 5, Scene 5 of Macbeth: "Life's but a walking shadow." The narrative returns to this quotation throughout the scenario, in addition to a good many other citations taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. However, these seem only incidental to the plot as do Kurosaki's relationships with a number of principal female characters. These become the thorniest problem of the work because whenever various confidence episodes are removed from the action, the entire affair becomes phlegmatic with its weak construction being apparent, principally due to a torpid editing process, although lead Yamashita's lack of emotional range is of no help, his customary facial expression seemingly indicative of some form of digestive distress.

The series was much better. What did Yasuharu Ishii think while he was making this movie. The movie is pretty lame. Anybody who are/were fan of this series will like it (i guess), otherwise there is no such thing called fun to watch this movie.If the series would have appeared in the big screen then the movie would have been hit but this movie doesnot have anything from beginning to end.

I give it a 5 stars because I was a real fan of the series, but personally the movie sucks.What is wrong with Japanese movies nowadays???Anything they adopt to make big screen debut is getting worse and worse everyday.

I guess not only Hollywood is keeping an eye for potential comic book series or graphic novels to turn into movies, and for Japan, this had already been something ongoing given its rich manga culture with immense material to tap upon, with the latest and most popular here being the Death Note movies which had even spawned its own movie spin off L: Change The World, albeit to varying result. And the rule of thumb of course is to snag a heartthrob in your leading role, and you more or less have it made. In today's screening, Tomohisa Tamashita's popularity in the titular role got measured by the audible shrieks and wistful sighs each time he comes on screen, even in the nerdiest of disguises.

Tomohisa Yamashita plays Kurosaki, a man whose family was destroyed by swindlers, hence his deep hatred for the group. He follows in the steps of Bruce Wayne, though more focused in his vigilantism, targeting only con artists in a bid to do his own Robin Hood work, conning them back and reimbursing the respective victims. There are various categories of conmen, such as white for those out for riches, red for those out to steal hearts, and black for those who con other con artists.

For someone who hasn't read the manga, or followed the television series, this movie was quite a challenge for me to follow. Granted there was an origin flashback worked into it, but it served to confuse the current entanglement with its chief villain Ishigaki Tetsu, played by Naoto Takenaka, whom most will recognize as the sensei character in Waterboys or Swing Girls. Being a standalone movie, it tells of the despicable acts that Ishigaki commits, in creating bankruptcy fraud, and how Kurosaki has him set in his sights for some black swindling, with a hunter after an extremely cunning prey.

Those without background knowledge will find adequate scenes in which a lot of questions will be asked. For starters, almost all the female characters here were treated second class, and not enough, despite its slightly more than 2 hours runtime, being focused on them. They come and go, and frankly speaking, could be done without as they don't hurt the plot an iota. Next, and I'm guessing here, is the love-hate relationship that Kurosaki has for his informer/con-master Katsuragi. While they exchange frequent notes on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, it's hardly linked to, nor presents itself as a proper metaphor on the issue of trust which they're harping on, either that or the essence of it got lost in translation.

Scenes such as those mentioned, which require a lot more background knowledge, tend to overindulge themselves, hence alienating severely first time visitors to The Black Swindler's role. Some like Bayside Shakedown obviously makes it easy for non-fans/series followers to grasp and enjoy the ride, but The Black Swindler seems to have stamped itself strictly for those in the know only (or fans of Tomohisa Tamashita). Unless of course we decide to pick up the pieces from the established television series.