jz02

Wow, what a fitting end to the vengeance trilogy. The movie starts out kind of slow, I actually watched this in 2 sittings. But the ending was just so wow. Mr. Baek's line, "There is no such thing as a perfect human being" sums up the theme of this movie, and the trilogy as a whole.

On the theme of atonement, "small atonement for small sins, big atonement for big sins". We will never be perfect, but we can learn from and correct our mistakes.

One thing I've noticed, there's a theme of kidnapping as the starting point plot device that is used throughout all 3 movies.

Just for the record, the goof comment about episode #4 is wrong. Ed being able to perform transmutations without a circle is explained later in the series. He obtained the power through the human transmutation experiment at the beginning of the series. His teacher was also able to do it because she too attempted human transmutation.

What enables Ed to perform transmutations without the circle is not the watch, he has the ability to form the circle with his hands. It was his ability to perform alchemy without a circle that got him qualified as a Kokka Renkinjutsushi (Nationally Certified Alchemist) in the first place. And you only get the pocket watch after qualifying as a Nationally Certified Alchemist.

As the previous reviewer noted, the history is quite interesting. Especially concerning the political intrigues within the Japanese government and the context that lead to things like the 2.26 incident. However the acting in many parts was horrible bad. I don't know if this is because many actors aren't native English speakers so they can't act right when speaking in English or something, but I felt that many parts were just over done and had the feeling that the actors were amateurs. Plus there were way too many pointless scenes mixed in (the still scene of Nijubashi was put in there for countless times). Maybe in a Manga you'd put in those scenes to provide context, but certainly not in film.

Some people might say that this movie white washes Japan's role/behavior in WWII, but I that's not the point of the film. WWII and the 30s were just the backdrop to the story of Sorge and Ozaki, people whose sympathy for the poor had mislead them to risk their own lives and the wellbeing of their families to serve an ultimately futile cause.

The moral I got from this story is, don't give in to temptations to serve some greater cause and throw away the truly important things in life like love and family. Richard Sorge wanted to change the world, all he managed to accomplish was to ruin himself and the lives of the women who loved him, along with Ozaki who trusted him.

Personally I felt really bad for Katya, Hanako, Yoshiko, and Mrs. Ozaki. They really didn't deserve it.