New Japanese movie titles on DVD reviewed in English.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Each one of the movies we review are available on DVD with English subtitles. You can buy them easily at CD Japan.

WATER BOYS

Released: 7.25.02
Item no: TDV-2694D
Price: ¥6300
Click here to buy it.

Taku: "Water Boys", in short, is a comedy about a male synchronized swimming team. A group of high school boys, persuaded by their attractive new swim coach, decide to form the first all-male high school synchronized swimming team. Some of the boys are so pathetic they can hardly even swim to begin with. But somehow they decide to persevere, despite their coach's sudden pregnancy.

Tomo: The main protagonists of the story are the five boys who decide to remain on the team, despite all the teasing they have to endure. We follow them through their struggles to realize their dreams. Although we question their motivation, the viewer gets pulled into their story.

Taku: Throughout we are hit by every kind of ridiculous joke you could imagine. There is a lot of physical comedy, a lot of stupid lines, and a lot of ridiculous situations. You really never know which direction the movie is heading. It always surprises the audience. This movie is completely hilarious throughout, but there is not one single intelligent joke in the entire thing. It is one ridiculously cornball comedy, but it does a great job of it. I haven't laughed this much at a movie in a long time.

Tomo: If you don't like stupid humor you may not want to watch the movie in the first place. But it is a really cute movie that makes you just have to love it regardless. There are some jokes in here that are so ridiculous you almost can't believe they went and did such a thing. This movie is supposedly based on a true story, but if that is so, then it is surely very loosely based. Just as I have seen in many Japanese dramas, the Japanese value of perseverance is a very strong moral in this movie. It's saying that people should stick together until the very end, even if it's something as stupid as male synchronized swimming.

Taku: But it's a good thing that the five boys stick together though, because they end up becoming good friends, despite their obvious differences. If they had not persevered there would have been no movie at all. Perhaps it is exactly this Japanese emphasis on perseverance that made such a ridiculous story even possible.

Tomo: The lead role, played by Satoshi Tsumabuki, is a much less cool character than he usually plays in his dramas. He does a very good job of making the character pathetic, yet likeable. It would be hard to say if the acting from all of the cast is great or not, but it is definitely over-the-top, which is appropriate for this type of comedy, and the actors definitely make it entertaining. All of the characters seem at least somewhat crazy, and it is their quirks that make them lovable in the end.

Taku: This is a 2-disc DVD set. The first disc just has the movie itself on it, including audio commentary. The second disc just has a load of bonus features on it, all of which we both agreed we could do without. If you buy this 2-disc set, buy it just for the first disc. You don't really need the second disc. Also, the second disc obviously has no English subtitles, in case you aren't a Japanese-speaker.

Tomo: Yep. I just wanted to see the movie, not a bunch of side stories and lengthy documentaries about the making of the movie.

Taku: Of course the finale is where you get to finally see the Water Boys perform their synchronized swimming routine. Up until the ending, we really don't get to see what exactly their routine is going to look like. Watching the bonus features on the second disc, we got to see just how much work some young men had to go through in order to pull the final scene off. It was admirable.

Tomo: In fact, the guys who actually did the performance made it seem too real. The long bonus feature about their practice really made it seem like a long and arduous ordeal. Obviously the budget isn't as high as most American movies, but it gets the job done. For a Japanese movie it certainly wouldn't be considered too low budget. They did get those 27 guys to do the finale after all, so it shows that they did everything necessary to make the movie as good-looking as possible. As for special effects, they actually did light a guy's wig on fire.

Taku: Yeah, that part where the guy gets his afro caught on fire was great, wasn't it? We're not going to forget that. It looked so real. The way he yelled and ran with it burning was hilarious, and a great example of the kind of over-the-top acting that made this movie work. A dolphin trainer from Sea World needed to be reimbursed for the fish that he was paid to put into the school swimming pool, which the five boys on the swimming team killed. This of course makes absolutely no sense at all, but that is exactly the kind of ridiculous situation that you will find throughout this movie.

Tomo: I also loved the part where Suzuki met his girlfriend. She comes flying in to jump kick the vending machine he was having trouble with. It was so abrupt and unexpected, it was the shear timing of the joke that made it funny. Another great part was when they think they accidentally electrocuted the dolphins at Sea World. One of them jumps in to give the dolphins mouth-to-mouth in order to resuscitate the dolphins. Where else can you get that? These are just a very small sampling of the many gags in this movie. The gags come at a fairly rapid rate.

Taku: It isn't an intelligently funny movie, but nonetheless keeps you laughing constantly throughout. The pacing is really good. It keeps you laughing better than most movies I've seen. I also found the characters very interesting. This is a very well-executed movie that really seems to understand what it is and do a good job of it -- It's a cornball comedy with really off-the-wall humor. I give it a 9 because I think it's an excellent comedy. Not very intelligent, but hilarious, regardless.

Tomo: It was a very enjoyable movie from the beginning to end. The characters were great. Yes, the humor wasn't very intelligent. In fact the whole movie doesn't really make very much sense when you think about it, but this movie should could keep you laughing. I'll give it an 8.

Tomo's Rating: 8

Taku's Rating: 9

Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Cast: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Hiroshi Tamaki, Aya Hirayama, Koen Kondo, Akifumi Miura, Takatoshi Kaneko, Kaori Manabe
Running time: 91 minutes
Subtitles: Japanese, English

Buy it here.