Golden Kamuy

The Golden Kamui manga should make for an amazing quasi-western. It's got the frontier setting, with war vets seeking their fortunes, native peoples in the mix and swords and guns determining survival and justice. In other words, it has everything a great western needs.

Unfortunately the great story is wasted by terrible direction and an average style. Instead of a cool, stylized western, we get a run-of-the-mill, fit-for-tv drama. This isn't surprising considering the directors less-than-impressive library (a bunch of high-low movies). What's worse, the costumes look like bad cosplay. And the actors look straight out of the make-up room, too clean and pretty for their situations. The final product looks and feels so corny. Where's the grit? Where's the style?

Oh well. I'm going to go rewatch the old Abashiri prison movies to get this bad taste out of my mouth.

I watched this adaptation familiar with the storyline of the anime version, which was one of my favorites. Storywise, they did a good job condensing the first few episodes from the first season of the anime into this movie. Actionwise, it was pretty solid and good. I still thought Kento Yamazaki was miscast as our main protagonist, Sugimoto. But Anna Yamada, as Asirpa, was fantastic! I loved her performance here. Like seeing an anime character brought to life. They capture the spectacular natural landscape of Hokkaido really well. From clusters of trees in open fields to winter wonderland landscapes that were full of snow, mountainous craggy cliffs, and majestic blue skies, it was beautiful. The portrayal of the Ainu tribe was also very spot-on. At first, I was afraid they couldn't recapture the funny and unhinged comedy from the anime because, personally, I thought the comedy was pretty hard to reimagine in live action format, but I was wrong. It's still funny even in the live action version. The story in the movie was only the beginning of the prologue to something much bigger. I can't wait for more because the sequel is coming and it's in series format. The craziest part is yet to come!

2024film-002(1/30/2024) Having read only the early parts of the original manga series, I watched this adaptation already familiar with the storyline. It became the first movie I saw in theater in 2024. I've come across comments suggesting that Anna Yamada, who portrayed Asirpa, looks too mature, compared to the original manga, and while I understand the sentiment, I actually liked her portrayal. Anna Yamada's performance was charming, and Hiroshi Tamaki's acting was disturbingly (in a good way) spot-on. Fantastic! I earnestly hope for more careful and successful live-action adaptations of manga-based works like this movie.

From the actor's performance to the scenery to the outfits everything was so well considered taking into account the manga and the anime. I think a better job for an anime adaptation has not been made in such great detail. Being a big fan of the manga and anime, my hopes were low for the live action, but I was proved wrong and rightfully so. They also gave great detail to making the set exactly like the story, from the jail to Asirpa's house and so on. Not to mention they followed the story so well, not leaving anything out and putting in parts that even the anime didn't incorporate. The actor's interpretation was really good. Truly an amazing job I cannot wait for the second movie!

Hope everyone stuck around after the credits for the cut scene. The scenery, costumes, and acting was on point. It kept the humor I loved from the anime. Anime fans would be delighted. No fan service so far lol but still a solid live adaptation. The actress was a bit older than I imagined but I can understand why they chosed a older actress for the main female. I look forward to the next installment and hope Golden Kamuy fans support this so we can see it to the end. Awesome job! Up there as one of my favorite live adaptations. The screenplay writer did a excellent job bringing it alive. GOLDEN KAMUY.