Soromon no gišó zenpen

It would have made more sens if the movie only had lasted three hours rather than to have two movies with a footage of almost four and a half hours. It has the potential, the excellent characterization of the characters as well, the sad melancholic atmosphere is well portrayed too but the footage simply fragmented everything and thus ruined the whole thing. The beginning (first hour) is well-paced but it later fades until it almost disappears and gets stuck in many death end sequences, when the movie is only treading water. And it's a pity, because the original obviously provided a strong and inspiring theme (the author has only published one book, Whisper, so far, but it would be a mistake to miss the fairy-tale Brave Story. He is basically a Japanese version of Lord of the Flies. The schoolchildren do not end up on a deserted island this time, but otherwise the whole thing is based on the same allegorical overlap, when the society is reflected the children and it is spooky. Young people take justice into their own hands and investigate the death of a classmate through a court trial, during which everything from bullying, hypocrisy, prejudice or class differences to hypocrisy, envy, cowardice, their own ambitions at the expense of others, etc. comes to light. The movie revolves around the main storyline so much than one 90-minute boring feature-film is hidden in these two very long movies and this is not helpful. Not even remotely. In fact, it is quite the opposite. (23.05.2016)