Nana

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)

I wonder if people that weren't already fans of the Nana manga would really understand the movie. I think that unless you had read the manga, a lot of the movie might be lost for viewers. The movie script was almost word for word from the manga, it was pretty fun to see it all on the big screen though.

As for the characters, both of the Nana's were perfect for their roles. Yasu was good, Nobu was not what I expected (but it worked), but Shin...poor Shin. He looked like he was in his 30's...they kind of killed his character, which is a shame since he is my favorite! Shoji, Jun and Kyosuke were all eerily perfect for their roles. I think they were the funniest part of the whole movie.

I saw this on an AA flight back from Japan and have to say it was a pretty enjoyable flick, so much so that I'll request netflix to carry it if/when it comes out on DVD so I can watch it with my wife.

It behooves me to add a bit of context, unlike quite a few of the people here, I've never read the manga, so for me this was a standalone movie with no preconceptions of what the characters should look/act like. I thought they were reasonably developed, interesting characters with good amount of depth.

My only real issue (as is frequently the case) is the manner in which they subtitled this movie. It's hard for me to ignore the subtitles if they're there, and worse, when they are poorly done then I spend an irritating amount of time interrupting myself mentally, thinking "Wait a second, that is not at all what (s)he said". This may just be my problem but it's definitely irritating. At the same time, they were not so drastically different that they significantly changed the feeling of the whole movie, which is frequently a complaint heard about English language movies with Japanese subtitles.

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.