Detroit Metal City

I saw this film during midnight madness at the Toronto film festival and right from the beginning moments, I knew I would be having a rollicking good time. The film is a charmer from start to finish. It's also one of the funniest films I have seen in a long time. My friend said he hadn't laughed so hard, possibly, ever. And that's not a stretch; the film was ridiculously funny. The audience completely ate it up. The film is a self-parody of the Japanese from beginning to end (Soichi dreams of making 'trendy' j-pop, wearing 'trendy' clothes and living in a 'trendy' apartment). It's like watching the Japanese hold a mirror up to themselves and mocking every detail. Watching Soichi try to reconcile his 'true' wannabe pop star self with his newly acquired and undesired status as death metal god is priceless. He spends his nights dressed as a 'demon' singing songs about rape and murder (the film mocks heavy metal in such a comical and respectable way that even serious metal fans can't help but roll with laughter), and his days on street corners singing sweet-sounding pop songs about love and, um, rainbows. Katsuyama had fantastic comic timing as Soichi, and completely won over the audience. It was a hoot to watch him totally commit himself to his metal persona while on stage, but being completely miserable and lovelorn (the girl he likes hates metal and knows nothing of his metal persona) after taking his make-up off. His two sides are completely different and you wonder if he'll ever just embrace his metal god status and give up his pop star dream. Of course, that's the journey the director wants to take us on. And it is one hell of a ride.

Some films are so ridiculous that it's just nonsense. DMC manages to be ridiculous and sublime at the same time. The film is a guaranteed good time and I can't imagine anyone watching it without a huge grin on their face afterward.

I don't like death metal, I thought Matsuyama Kenichi is a weak actor who can only handle supporting roles, the main character reminded me of "Densha Otoko" who annoyed me very much, and they went overboard with the comedy. Personally, nothing was going right for this film, but it turned out to be one hell of a movie.

The theme for this movie is "Dream", and it is cheesy as it sounds, as expected of a anime-based movie. However, the movie had the energy and its fast pace in addition to the interesting setting quickly drew me into the story. It is apparent a lot of effort was put into the SFX and production of this movie.

Matsuyuki Yasuko seemed totally out of place in a bad role, but she was absolutely hot. There were many stupid moments, but I found myself constantly laughing, even at dirty jokes. This film has the magic, there is no other way of explaining it. Other than its excessively cheesy "showdown" scene at the end, this movie was perfect in every way. Good enough to satisfy even the harshest doubters (i.e. me). Highly recommended.

The DMC anime was memorable, quirky and really damn dark and despite it's flaws I certainly enjoyed it. The live action takes the story and compacts it including only the major scenes and that both works in it's favour and detriment.

For a start the lead is really quite bad, I have no idea why they insisted on making the character so excessively camp but I didn't like it. Top that with the whole thing being played down (Especially Krauser) that it could pass for a 12 rating easily.

If you've seen the anime then I'd say don't bother with this, if you don't like anime then this will have to do at getting this great story across.

This live action isn't terrible, it's just inferior to something released the very same year!

The Good:

Great soundtrack

DMC is still a great concept

Unlike the anime we actually have structure in the story

The Bad:

Lead is stupidly camp

Things I learnt from this movie:

Nine times out of ten Anime beats the hell out of it's live action counterpart

Soichi is a young man who leaves home a wide-eyed innocent with dreams of being a star in a form of sickly-sweet wholesome pop music which he calls "trendy" music, but somehow finds himself getting fame in a violence laden heavy metal band. In real life he's a complete innocent, vaguely reminiscent of a young Jerry Lewis, but when he's in the rock band Detroit Metal City he transforms into the personification of the misogynistic, sociopathic rock star.

I've always found Japanese humour as rather broad and this is no exception here, except it entirely works in this movie. Ken'ichi Matsuyama, apparently a star in Japan who sends girls into fits of screaming, does an excellent job here and is entirely convincing either as the innocent young man or as the rock star. In fact, he is achingly hilarious when he's singing the "trendy" music that he loves. There are several moments that will have you convulsed, but I don't wish to give anything away by describing specific scenes, except to say that it's the humour that pushes the movie past the level of the ordinary.

However, despite being a comedy the film is completely faithful to the spirit of heavy metal music. This is not Spinal Tap. Unlike Spinal the music in this movie sounds convincing and very much like good rock music. Whenever it comes out on DVD you'll want to turn up the subwoofer!

I saw this movie at the Toronto International Film Festival and the crowd I saw it with was very receptive, despite likely not being the target audience for the film. Even the director before the movie said that it premiered the previous night to a very enthusiastic crowd and he joked that he hoped we'd liked it since we seemed so much older. That got a big laugh, but I still was surprised to see so many people past middle age who clearly enjoyed this movie. It was almost certainly the humour and the likability of Matsuyama and the entire cast that was the responsible.

This feels like something that almost has to be re-made by Hollywood. However, you should try to see this version first before any watered-down North American version hits the screens.

In order to accomplish his dream, to become a fashionable pop music singer, Soichi Negishi leaves his hometown and in Tokyo he studies Music while he makes also friendships with other people of his music delight.Though after his graduation he finds himself as the vocalist of a widely known demonic metal band,called Detroit Metal City. While he tries to find out where he made it all wrong,he learns what it really is to be a musician. This movie is a very good example of Japanese humour based on conflicts. I must confess that to me the story was not that attractive at first but after watching it I saw that I was totally wrong. The story contained a balanced amount of romance,humour and a very good catchword. Not only the shot but also the music was pretty good, and the acting of Ken'ichi Matsuyama was eye catching. I have seen other movies of him and I think that this one is of one his best performances,since he acted such different characters from before. The costumes and stages were pretty successful as well. I am neither a pop lover nor am I a heavy metal fan but I have to admit that I sometimes mutter the main song of the band...