Nana

So after hearing about the Nana mangas for a while, I finally broke down and started reading them and became immediately obsessed. Therefore, within a week of reading the mangas, I had to watch the movie.

As far as adaptation screenplays go, I thought this movie was very solid. They chose their material well, and cut out appropriately. But of course, it is difficult to be 100% satisfied with a film when you're so in love with the source material. I was disappointed with the actual story arch of the film because I felt like it barely tapped into the intensity of the Nana's relationship because they failed to really, really show the progression of the friendship, in my opinion.

I was also slightly disappointed by the music, not because the music was bad, but because it wasn't what I was expecting. Perhaps because I am an American with very little exposure to Japanese music, I was expecting Trapnest to be a lot less pop (well, I thought they might be pop in the way that Evanescence is pop) and I definitely expected Blast to be more traditional Sex Pistol, Clash, etc. style punk rock.

But regardless, I enjoyed the movie very much and would indeed recommend it to fans of the manga.

An IMDbian recommended this and underlined that it is an adaptation of a popular "shoujo manga" (girlie/chick comics). The NANA sensation can be compared with the craze caused by Densha otoko (Train Man) in Japan. Even the American girls find time to flip through it. Well, as the last page of chick comics said goodbye to me some twenty years ago, and my old bones cannot hold much dross energy for punk or rock n' roll music after work, sorry, not much interest shed in the first place. Besides, Nana was never heard to me. Just that the very last rental ticket was idling so I grabbed the VCD without much expectation... but it turned out to be a delightful surprise.

The names of the two Nanas and their room 707 are very interesting. "Seven" in Japanese is pronounced as "na-na", a universal lucky number. Two Nanas live together in a "na-na-tse-row(zero)-na-na" room, they rob all the luck of the world! The family names of the Nanas exhibit tellingly their characters. Nana KOMATSU, the traditional Nana who only longs for getting married was born with a last name means "a small (ko) pine tree (matsu)". Imagine a tiny pine tree in a traditional Japanese still and quiet landscape painting, not a grand view, right? And the modern Nana, Nana OZAKI who is independent and strong enough to brave any storms in her life, is given by Heaven a grandiose label, "a huge (o) mountain summit (zaki)". Comically, Mount Everest sprang from my head when I made the analogy. Their names are so self-explanatory, so graphic, so vivid.

Two namesakes of paradoxical personalities live under the same lucky-lucky roof in harmony, both traditional and modern qualities exist, fuse inside one body (Room 707) without causing any conflict. On the contrary, they are helping and inspiring each other. They happily found each other. That is the ideal of the original author Ai Yazawa: the attitude, the attribute, the bearing, the idiosyncrasy of 21st century Japanese feminism (woman figure).

While watching it and laughing at the lousy English lyrics of the loud songs, I remembered two other movies: "La double vie de Véronique", which is right now stirring a little hot talk in town intriguingly. (It really beats me a lot why it suddenly becomes so popular in its second coming after its first screening in 1991???) Two identical Weronika/Véronique live their separate lives in France and Poland. She came across/found her so accidentally in a commotion and they got connected in a mystic way. They are actually searching for each other and found though a little late.

Another is Ingmar Bergman's Persona. Destruction, selfishness, atrocity, tragedy... are fitting negative words to depict this one, though. Elisabeth Vogler ("Vogler" -- Old German "Bird-catcher") a self-made-mute actress (Liv Ullmann) who so determinedly and cruelly wills to divorce herself from the pain of her own existence/façade which she has been playing for a long time and is now fed up with. She transfers absolutely her "self" (identity) on to Alma ("Alma" -- Spanish "Soul") a nurse (Bibi Andersson), who somehow envies her, and causes her collapse. The actress tries so hard to dump forcefully the pain she dislikes onto a weaker partner to make her like herself. A stronger "her" tortures the weaker "her" inside a dead quiet remote country house.

And how wonderful it is to see the 22-year-old Ryuhei Matsuda (bass guitarist Ren) has grown into fuller manhood and has shrugged off the enigmatic androgynous air he displayed in Gohatto (1999). (Gosh! He looks like neither boy nor girl... though with an enticing face.) Another good discovery.

The present day Japanese women are struggling with the pulling forces of the traditional and the modern feminist values, some may have found it, some still groping, some in the mid-way of a tunnel, some in a cul-de-sac. May every Japanese woman's identity be successfully located so as to achieve an inner "harmony", a pillar idea of the Japanese society and culture.

I liked the freshness in the first half of 'Nana'. The two girls Nana (Nakashima) and Nana (Miyazaki) meet and are reunited by 'coincidence'. Then they decide to move in together and we are shown glimpses of their worklife and lovelife. However, in the second half, as the film shifts to Nakashima's Nana's lovelife, it gets painfully slow and boring. The film was slow to begin with but the first half managed to stay enjoyable. The 'reunion' in the end looks rushed.

The instrumental pieces in the background score add to the freshness and winter season. However the songs are quite bad. Cinematography's quite adequate. From the two Nana's, Miyazaki is the better actress. Even though she frequently shows her toothy smile, she brings out Nana's naivety, vulnerability and cheerfulness with tremendous ease and makes her character very likable. Conversely, Nakashima is mostly wooden. She pretty much has one expression on her face throughout the whole film. The supporting cast ranges from adequate to wooden.

So to speak, 'Nana' could have been very enjoyable had the second part received more consideration. This film may appeal more to the younger generation.

Nana may suffer from being a condensed version of an expansive Manga universe, but it also knows exactly how much time to spend on individual plots strands. Nana is a coming of age, female friendship film that handles immature and young emotions with absolute maturity. The most impressive aspect was creating a relationship between one of the protagonists boyfriends and another girl. It easily could have made him a villain, but instead took an unbiased look at how the relationship came to be. Luckily, for a film focused on bands, the music is relatively good. Nakashima and Miyazaki both inhabit their roles well and build up a believable friendship. Highly enjoyable, even if it doesn't quite feel complete.

My curiosity was piqued when I saw many of the DVDs on sale at various shops recently, so was actually wondering what the movie's all about, until I chanced upon a copy (Special Edition too) at the Esplanade Library. In giving it a shot, I'm pleasantly surprised, at the story it told, as well as the eye-candy available of course.

It contains an extremely strong story of friendship, of love and the falling out of, adapted from a popular Japanese manga of the same name, by Ai Yazawa. You might liken it to Feel 100%, as it touches on life, romantic love, and friends. This is the story with a theme primarily centered on Fate, of how two strangers sharing the same name Nana, be the same age, come to meet one night on a train to Tokyo for their own personal reasons, and how they grow to be best friends. The two girls can be so different from each other, one being a kawaii (cute) bimbo, while the other is a rock chick (which I thought was in the mould of Garbage's Shirley Manson) with her own rock band called Black Stones.

While the narrative is forward moving for Nana Komatsu (Aoi Miyazaki), in following her objective to be in Tokyo with her boyfriend Shoji (Yuuta Hiraoka), Nana Osaki (Mika Nakashima, a real life singer) is in the city to try and achieve her big break for the band. However, flashbacks and the slow revelation of Osaki's backstory too revealed a romantic tangle she had with an ex-band member Ren Honjou (Ryuhei Matsuda), who now plays for a successful outfit called TRAPNEST.

It's an account of the two Nana's romantic relationships with the guys in their lives, and how they encourage and support each other through turbulent times during the relationships. While Nana Osaki may be kawaii, her clingy puppy dog attitude may put some guys off, who might prefer the more confident Nana Osaki. But pride too is an obstacle, as I know from personal experience how two very ambitious persons can stumble unwittingly, and perhaps reluctantly sacrifice love for personal career.

Before you dismiss this as a chick flick, I'd like to say I would think otherwise. It may look like one, but it's tremendously well made, with a well paced narrative. Perhaps having the manga serve as a source provided for richer characterization of the leads. The two actresses who play both Nanas too couldn't contrast each other perfectly, and all in all, it's a very pleasing, despite the down moments in the story, movie to watch.

By the way, the sequel has already been filmed, and is pending a year end release. I don't suppose we'll get the opportunity to see it in the theatres here, so will have to cross my fingers for a quick DVD release.

This Code 3 DVD Special Edition by Panorama Entertainment comes with 2 discs. The first contains the movie and a full length commentary by director Kentaro Otami as well as the two lead actresses Mika Nakashima and Aio Miyazaki. Listening to them during the commentary, they revealed which shots were kept close to the manga source, and which had to be changed for reasons ranging from aesthetics to form. No worries though, as the commentary comes with subtitles as well, in both English (though there were some grammar/tense issues with "shotted") and Chinese. Audio comes in a Dolby Digital 5.1, which allows for a truly rock-concert like atmosphere during scenes when the bands perform.

The second disc is the feature disc, consisting of

• Making of NANA,(33mins 25s), follows the production from the 15-16 Jan 05 when filming began, including the director and cast interviews, as well as deleted scenes (filmed but not used in the movie) - Premiere Screening in Japan, 7 July (for obvious reasons) 2005 (3mins 10s), in Rippongi, with the director and major casts sharing their thoughts on the movie and of the characters they play. - Stage Appearance in Japan, 3 Sep 2005, (3mins 55s) with the director and major casts sharing their thoughts of the movie again. - Asia Premiere in Hong Kong, on 2 Oct 2005 (4mins), with a press conference attended by director Kentaro Otani, Mika Nakashima and Ryuhei Matsuda, and the attendance at the premiere screening complete with a cosplay contest. - Four theatrical trailers, without subtitles (Runtimes of 1min 48s, 30s, 20s, 34s) - Four TV Spots, without subtitles (Runtimes of 17s, 17s, 30s, 17s)