Moon Child

O.k., so even if the main character reminds you of your sister, he can act.Gackt plays Sho, a juvenille who has trained with Kei, (hyde) which is a vampire. He trains Sho to fight with guns, dodge bullets, and take out underground gang members. They eventually bump into another gunsman, who also takes out gangs. He has a sister, who likes Kei, but Sho likes her. ( Do not pay attention to the back of the box on the DVD, it is wrong!!!)The movie is great in a few ways. The gun scenes are excellent, esp. when Hyde throws 2 pistol clips at Gackt and he catches them in the guns. AWESOME!!! There are funny scenes too, but you have to see it yourself. Only negative, sometimes Hyde burns in light, sometimes he doesn't. I recommend this to everyone, esp. if you like shoot em up films or if your a fan of Camui Gackt.

The two stars of the movie Moon Child Gackt (ex Malice Mizer, solo artist) and Hyde (L'arc en Ciel, solo artist) are both rock idols in Japan, so it goes without saying that my expectations were fairly low for this film heading in.

The plot is quite a piece of work. On one level it's a typical gangster picture about orphans growing up in the slums and trying to carve out a piece of the pie for themselves. And on another level it's about the transience of life and the value of happiness, which is shown to us through the presence of the vampire Kei (Hyde), who is forever trapped in his youth. Yes, there's a vampire. But the story isn't actually about the vampire, it's about Sho (Gackt).

The movie opens with Sho, his brother Shinji and Toshi as children innocently robbing a local gangster. In the midst of the retreat Sho comes upon Kei, who is burning in the sunlight, Sho takes Kei to their hideout and before you know it Kei's true nature is revealed. Flash forward a few years and we see a young Sho on the verge of manhood, and Kei, still unchanged but smiling a lot more.

The movie has the traditional three acts of a gangster picture. Predictably the first act has a happy go lucky quality to it, but all the while the director shows you glimpses of the dark clouds looming beyond. Act two is the fake smile on the frown, and Act three is the tears and redemption. As far as pacing and writing goes, I think the movie does a top notch job of trusting its character's motivations and histories. I was genuinely moved by the story.

The problem isn't with the script, the problem is with the action. The action scenes though some are creative and funny, are monotonous and unbelievable. For all the drama in the comedy/drama scenes there is very little in the action scenes. Which are so full of gun shots you're likely to get a headache. Sho walking into machine gun fire is so ridiculous it makes Rambo look plausible.

I also had a few qualms about the performances, especially Hyde's Kei. While he was good as the stranger standing aloof, or the morbid figure smiling dully, he failed to convince me of his 'curse', and he failed to step up when it came time to be dramatic. This was his inexperience as an actor showing.

Overall I think the story is such a good one that I'm willing to forgive most of the film's shortcomings. It may not be the prettiest film, but it definitely has some great shots, and great moments. You won't see another movie where the vampire is a secondary character this year or possibly any other. Moon Child is a unique experience and though it takes some getting used to, when all is said and done, you'll be glad you invested time and emotion in these characters.

When I first heard about Moon Child, I thought it was a joke. After a few months, I figured I guess it's for real. The few reviews I read that WEREN'T made by squealing fangirls were not very promising.

When I was given the opportunity to watch it, I was fully prepared to groan, wince, and otherwise need to close my eyes to avoid the silliness.

I was more than a little surprised, and in a good way.

Yes, Moon Child has its moments of cheese, camp, and general dorkiness -- I think that's kind of impossible to avoid when it involves Gackt Camui, a man not known for his sanity -- but all in all, it was wholly enjoyable.

No, it is not a work of cinema genius but it is very, very heartfelt, amusing, with fun choreography, a touching score, and a fun cast. I know little of Japanese cinema so I can't really judge the acting but considering the fact that the cast was speaking a language or extreme dialect foreign to them at one time or another and that a couple of them have almost no acting experience, I was rather impressed.

If you can enjoy a good action movie, a good drama, a good comedy, see this film. At least rent it since it's coming to Region 1.

On a side note, there is zero homosexual/homoerotic content in this film. I didn't even see much of a subtext. Don't let people that read too much into things ruin this for you.

It may be possible that the cultural difference makes me rate it lower than I would, say, an American film, but really, what a long, boring, pretentious, often ridiculous film!

First you have the two protagonists, Japanese pop singers, both dyed blond, Gackt (please attempt to ignore the name sounds like something a Klingon would eat) wearing blue contact lenses, trying to look cooler than God. I could buy that. Then there is the story setting: somewhere in a fictional Chinese city where a blend of poor Japanese immigrants and Taiwanese and Chinese people live and fight each other. I could buy that, too.

Now it gets ridiculous: all of this is set in the future (2025-2045) and one of the rising gangsters is a vampire. Does that mean we see cool gadgets, special effects, even vampire teeth? No. The whole story could have been set in the 1980's for all the tech and cars. Then there are the gun fights: long coated heroes stand in the middle of rooms and shoot from akimbo guns without moving (or even aiming). Occasionally, they remain out of ammo and reload their guns by throwing ammo clips to one another.

The thing is that if you ignore the vampire angle (which is very very easy, since not much of the lore is used in the film) and the future angle (which is also very easy: just remove the two captions showing the year), then the movie becomes a coming of age, clan gang story. The Godfather this is not, of course, but for that genre and allowing for Asian weirdness and removing about 30 minutes from it, the movie could have fought for an average rating, but as such it is a pretentious borefest.

Update: after reading the reviews of other people I can say with almost certainty that its rating was artificially raised by fakers.

MOON CHILD has a lot going for it. It's a visually stunning film to behold, but its story reeks of lack of originality. The movie is basically a retread of the Gangster genre, with a character on the rise, and his eventual fall, in the underworld. Throw a vampire into the mix to spice things up, and the film actually feels a bit more than generic, but alas its second half proves that it is, in fact, nothing more than a generic gangster movie.

As an action film, the movie fails badly. The director has a lot of money to throw around, so we get plenty of special effects and gunplay. There are, perhaps, TOO much gunplay. This is made doubly hard to stomach because the gunplay is so poorly filmed. John Woo this movie aint. If anything, MOON CHILD's gun battles look like the product of a director who wants stylized violence, but refuses to fully "go" with it. As a result, the film's non-action scenes play it up as realistic, but its action scenes reek as cartoonish.

Still, a visually impressive movie that just might be bothered by an unnecessarily long 15 extra minutes at the end and the old Asian use of heavy melodrama for no obvious purpose other to have melodrama.

6 out of 10