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Surely Someday (but not today)
Trying to decide if I feel like waking up super-early tomorrow to go to Jingu and see Masumi Kuwata's kid play baseball for Oberlin. We'll see, maybe I'll go but show up late.
As for today, I didn't account for it being summer vacation and lots of foreigners deciding to leave the country and needing re-entry permits, so what usually would take me about 20 minutes total at Shinagawa took over 2 hours and as a result I didn't make it to the kuyakusho to update my gaijin card. On the other hand, I did get the re-entry permit, which was actually the more important thing to do -- I can't re-enter the country with my visa without the permit, but I can continue carrying my passport until I update my gaijin card...
Still, I left home around 1pm, got to the immigration office a little after 2, had my paperwork all filled out and my revenue stamp ready... and then my waiting number was #786, and they were serving #610 at the time. Yikes. So yeah, it was around 2 hours waiting. I updated my brackets for West and East Tokyo's tournaments, but hadn't brought any other prefectures to work on, so I spent about 30 minutes just zoning out, really.
Normally I would have been able to make it to Oji in time for the ward office, but alas, not this time. So instead I grabbed kaitensushi in Shinagawa station since it was already 4:30pm and I was starving, and then I took a train up to Saitama Shintoshin to watch a movie. I was going to see either Surely Someday or that new Miyazaki one, and opted for Surely Someday because I'm sure Miyazaki will be in the theaters longer and may even still be here when I get back from the US. (I also kinda want to see Odoru Daisousassen 3 but am not in any huge hurry either.) They had signs up about how this weekend, Oguri Shun will actually be at Movix for some kind of event about the movie, but I really don't want to deal with that kinda crowd. 5 years ago I would have DIED to meet him, but now I've kind of moved on from my Shun fixation, especially since he hasn't been in anything I've wanted to see in YEARS, I'm just not into action/thrillers/samurai stuff. Besides, my favorite actor in recent years is Koide Keisuke. Who is the entire reason I went to see this movie in the first place, it just happened to coincidentally be Oguri Shun's directional debut.
As for the movie itself... it's kind of a big tangled plot. On the surface it's about these four (really five) guys who basically screwed up their entire futures during their last year of high school when they form a band, get ready to perform at their school's culture festival, only the festival gets cancelled... so they build a bomb and threaten to blow up the school unless the principal changes his mind. The principal changes his mind and the bomb goes off anyway and so naturally the five boys get expelled (well, you're led to believe that four get expelled and one dies in the explosion, but as it turns out he survived and simply never left his parents' house ever again). And now it's three years later and their lives are still screwed up as an aftermath of that event.
Koide plays Takumi, a son of a former cop (former because his dad had to quit his job after his fuckup son blows up the school), who has been the defacto leader of their fivesome since they were young children, apparently. It's never quite clear why he is the leader except for that unlike the rest of them, he comes up with ideas and says "LET'S DO IT", and the rest of them never bother questioning "is this actually a good idea?" Among these ideas are things like the 11-year-old Takumi seeing a picture of a hostess in a magazine and saying "Guys, let's go to Kabukicho, I have to meet this woman," which he does -- just as his dad is trying to arrest her. And then 7 years later, of course it is Takumi's idea to make a bomb and threaten to blow up the school too. 3 years after that, when this movie is taking place, it is naturally also Takumi's idea to rehunt down that woman... because one of his friends is involved in the yakuza and he thinks she's involved with them too. In the end it is also Takumi's idea for their final plan: to perform their song from high school in front of Ueno station, and then rob a bank in order to pay off the yakuza to leave them alone.
It sounds crazy, but there it is.
Kazuo is the dumb fighter kid in high school who would do anything to protect his sister, who is sick in the hospital. And Kazuo gets in with the yakuza, which kind of starts all of the crap... except as it turns out, not really -- he's just the catalyst that starts them into the plot.
Kyohei is the clown. I think they actually intended Koki Tanaka from KAT-TUN to play this part, as I think I've seen him thrown into this role in at least 3-4 doramas. Kyohei has no clue what the hell is coming out of his mouth, never shuts up, and I get the feeling that his character is really funny if you are a teenage or 20's guy, and other than that, not really. He reminds me of some of my immature kids at school more than anything else.
Then you have Shuto, who was clearly intended to be played by Hiro Mizushima, but instead is played by Go Ayano. Shuto is the sensitive musician who actually wanted no part of ANY of these crazy hairbrained schemes, but kind of ends up drawn into all of it by the fact that... wait, why DOES he do any of this? I think he's indicative of the role of the loyal Japanese boy who can't split off from a group of friends even if he knows it's what he should do. It's indicated that Shuto could have been a successful musician if he hadn't gotten tangled up in this stupid plot, and he also has some sort of secret power that allows him to stare at a woman for 5 seconds and hypnotize her. This is usually used to gain information but also to try to get a laugh out of the audience (usually it's Takumi going "Shuto, I need you to drop this woman... cmon, PLEASE?")
Then uh, you have all of these yakuza guys. Let me see if I can untangle this all. Basically, if you go in chronological order, Misa (the hostess woman) was involved in a money laundering ring 10 years ago, when Takumi finds her picture in an adult magazine his dad had and goes to hunt her down. It turns out that the picture was marked because his dad was going to go bust in there on a certain day... so naturally after he's talking to her, and she finds out his dad is a cop, hell breaks loose, people shoot each other, etc. They catch her and one or two of the others, and in a bizarre scene kid-Takumi tries to reassure her that she isn't just some object and that he likes her very much, so she says to him, "when you get older, make me your wife, okay?"
3.5 years ago, Misa gets out of jail and meets Miyagi, an older hippie guitarist who plays at Ueno station, and they hit it off and start dating. Shuto also plays guitar with Miyagi and kind of learns from him about singing and about life... and somehow Takumi never sees Misa there despite that he often comes to get Shuto to hang out.
3 years ago, the five boys decide to start their band, the school festival is cancelled, etc. September 12, they blow up the school. Because of the explosion, the cops from the koban (police station) in Ueno run off to the school to provide backup.
3 years ago September 12, the yakuza group that Misa had been a front for 10 years ago finds her in Ueno... naturally there are no policemen around because they've gone to the bomb threat... so the yakuza take Misa and Miyagi.
3 years ago September 15, the yakuza have, for whatever reason, killed Miyagi and kidnapped Misa. This part I was never clear on besides just that they were trying to punish her for whatever, maybe for something connected to the laundering.
In the meantime, Kazuo joins the yakuza. Takumi's dad quits being a cop and opens a bar, where Takumi helps out. Kyohei gets into a 3rd-rate university but still is a loser. Shuto plays guitar and is trying his best to go pro. And Yuki, we think is dead, but is really hiding in his room after his dad commits suicide.
September 12 is now when the movie starts, and Takumi and Kyohei see a woman get hit by a car -- and as the driver goes out to check whether the woman is okay -- the woman threatens the driver with a gun and steals the car and drives off. The driver turns out to be Kazuo, and later the woman turns out to be Misa.
Kazuo runs away from the yakuza and comes to Takumi's bar, and is followed by a yakuza leader dude -- and as Kazuo has hidden in the rafters the yakuza dude basically threatens Takumi and Kyohei... and Takumi comes up with the brilliant idea to go get Shuto, reunite, and go find Misa.
I'm not going to recount the rest of the events, but basically the entire movie is them discovering this back plot about Misa's moneylaundering and the yakuza connection. Eventually, thanks to Misa's help, the police actually catch Iijima and the yakuza guys robbing a bank -- the same one Takumi's gang plans to rob, but apparently they somehow escape from that because they are wearing masks or whatever, it is REALLY weird. Infact now that I have tried to tangle this all out I feel like it is even more tangled than when I started.
The upshot is to go see the movie if you like these kind of hairbrained plots where a bunch of guys are being young, dumb, and stupid, almost in the Gokusen vein but without any real moral at the end. I think they're trying to express that "surely, someday" these guys will get their lives back together after screwing them up by blowing up the school, but it's not really clear how that will ever work out. I had to admit that the most interesting part was watching Koide in a role that wasn't as a nice boy for once, though I'm not sure it suits him as well. I'd like to hope that unlike Oguri Shun, Koide will go back to playing dopey romantic comedy leads and I will continue to actually watch him in movies. In some ways I think he's kinda like a Japanese version of John Cusack, if that makes any sense.
As for today, I didn't account for it being summer vacation and lots of foreigners deciding to leave the country and needing re-entry permits, so what usually would take me about 20 minutes total at Shinagawa took over 2 hours and as a result I didn't make it to the kuyakusho to update my gaijin card. On the other hand, I did get the re-entry permit, which was actually the more important thing to do -- I can't re-enter the country with my visa without the permit, but I can continue carrying my passport until I update my gaijin card...
Still, I left home around 1pm, got to the immigration office a little after 2, had my paperwork all filled out and my revenue stamp ready... and then my waiting number was #786, and they were serving #610 at the time. Yikes. So yeah, it was around 2 hours waiting. I updated my brackets for West and East Tokyo's tournaments, but hadn't brought any other prefectures to work on, so I spent about 30 minutes just zoning out, really.
Normally I would have been able to make it to Oji in time for the ward office, but alas, not this time. So instead I grabbed kaitensushi in Shinagawa station since it was already 4:30pm and I was starving, and then I took a train up to Saitama Shintoshin to watch a movie. I was going to see either Surely Someday or that new Miyazaki one, and opted for Surely Someday because I'm sure Miyazaki will be in the theaters longer and may even still be here when I get back from the US. (I also kinda want to see Odoru Daisousassen 3 but am not in any huge hurry either.) They had signs up about how this weekend, Oguri Shun will actually be at Movix for some kind of event about the movie, but I really don't want to deal with that kinda crowd. 5 years ago I would have DIED to meet him, but now I've kind of moved on from my Shun fixation, especially since he hasn't been in anything I've wanted to see in YEARS, I'm just not into action/thrillers/samurai stuff. Besides, my favorite actor in recent years is Koide Keisuke. Who is the entire reason I went to see this movie in the first place, it just happened to coincidentally be Oguri Shun's directional debut.
As for the movie itself... it's kind of a big tangled plot. On the surface it's about these four (really five) guys who basically screwed up their entire futures during their last year of high school when they form a band, get ready to perform at their school's culture festival, only the festival gets cancelled... so they build a bomb and threaten to blow up the school unless the principal changes his mind. The principal changes his mind and the bomb goes off anyway and so naturally the five boys get expelled (well, you're led to believe that four get expelled and one dies in the explosion, but as it turns out he survived and simply never left his parents' house ever again). And now it's three years later and their lives are still screwed up as an aftermath of that event.
Koide plays Takumi, a son of a former cop (former because his dad had to quit his job after his fuckup son blows up the school), who has been the defacto leader of their fivesome since they were young children, apparently. It's never quite clear why he is the leader except for that unlike the rest of them, he comes up with ideas and says "LET'S DO IT", and the rest of them never bother questioning "is this actually a good idea?" Among these ideas are things like the 11-year-old Takumi seeing a picture of a hostess in a magazine and saying "Guys, let's go to Kabukicho, I have to meet this woman," which he does -- just as his dad is trying to arrest her. And then 7 years later, of course it is Takumi's idea to make a bomb and threaten to blow up the school too. 3 years after that, when this movie is taking place, it is naturally also Takumi's idea to rehunt down that woman... because one of his friends is involved in the yakuza and he thinks she's involved with them too. In the end it is also Takumi's idea for their final plan: to perform their song from high school in front of Ueno station, and then rob a bank in order to pay off the yakuza to leave them alone.
It sounds crazy, but there it is.
Kazuo is the dumb fighter kid in high school who would do anything to protect his sister, who is sick in the hospital. And Kazuo gets in with the yakuza, which kind of starts all of the crap... except as it turns out, not really -- he's just the catalyst that starts them into the plot.
Kyohei is the clown. I think they actually intended Koki Tanaka from KAT-TUN to play this part, as I think I've seen him thrown into this role in at least 3-4 doramas. Kyohei has no clue what the hell is coming out of his mouth, never shuts up, and I get the feeling that his character is really funny if you are a teenage or 20's guy, and other than that, not really. He reminds me of some of my immature kids at school more than anything else.
Then you have Shuto, who was clearly intended to be played by Hiro Mizushima, but instead is played by Go Ayano. Shuto is the sensitive musician who actually wanted no part of ANY of these crazy hairbrained schemes, but kind of ends up drawn into all of it by the fact that... wait, why DOES he do any of this? I think he's indicative of the role of the loyal Japanese boy who can't split off from a group of friends even if he knows it's what he should do. It's indicated that Shuto could have been a successful musician if he hadn't gotten tangled up in this stupid plot, and he also has some sort of secret power that allows him to stare at a woman for 5 seconds and hypnotize her. This is usually used to gain information but also to try to get a laugh out of the audience (usually it's Takumi going "Shuto, I need you to drop this woman... cmon, PLEASE?")
Then uh, you have all of these yakuza guys. Let me see if I can untangle this all. Basically, if you go in chronological order, Misa (the hostess woman) was involved in a money laundering ring 10 years ago, when Takumi finds her picture in an adult magazine his dad had and goes to hunt her down. It turns out that the picture was marked because his dad was going to go bust in there on a certain day... so naturally after he's talking to her, and she finds out his dad is a cop, hell breaks loose, people shoot each other, etc. They catch her and one or two of the others, and in a bizarre scene kid-Takumi tries to reassure her that she isn't just some object and that he likes her very much, so she says to him, "when you get older, make me your wife, okay?"
3.5 years ago, Misa gets out of jail and meets Miyagi, an older hippie guitarist who plays at Ueno station, and they hit it off and start dating. Shuto also plays guitar with Miyagi and kind of learns from him about singing and about life... and somehow Takumi never sees Misa there despite that he often comes to get Shuto to hang out.
3 years ago, the five boys decide to start their band, the school festival is cancelled, etc. September 12, they blow up the school. Because of the explosion, the cops from the koban (police station) in Ueno run off to the school to provide backup.
3 years ago September 12, the yakuza group that Misa had been a front for 10 years ago finds her in Ueno... naturally there are no policemen around because they've gone to the bomb threat... so the yakuza take Misa and Miyagi.
3 years ago September 15, the yakuza have, for whatever reason, killed Miyagi and kidnapped Misa. This part I was never clear on besides just that they were trying to punish her for whatever, maybe for something connected to the laundering.
In the meantime, Kazuo joins the yakuza. Takumi's dad quits being a cop and opens a bar, where Takumi helps out. Kyohei gets into a 3rd-rate university but still is a loser. Shuto plays guitar and is trying his best to go pro. And Yuki, we think is dead, but is really hiding in his room after his dad commits suicide.
September 12 is now when the movie starts, and Takumi and Kyohei see a woman get hit by a car -- and as the driver goes out to check whether the woman is okay -- the woman threatens the driver with a gun and steals the car and drives off. The driver turns out to be Kazuo, and later the woman turns out to be Misa.
Kazuo runs away from the yakuza and comes to Takumi's bar, and is followed by a yakuza leader dude -- and as Kazuo has hidden in the rafters the yakuza dude basically threatens Takumi and Kyohei... and Takumi comes up with the brilliant idea to go get Shuto, reunite, and go find Misa.
I'm not going to recount the rest of the events, but basically the entire movie is them discovering this back plot about Misa's moneylaundering and the yakuza connection. Eventually, thanks to Misa's help, the police actually catch Iijima and the yakuza guys robbing a bank -- the same one Takumi's gang plans to rob, but apparently they somehow escape from that because they are wearing masks or whatever, it is REALLY weird. Infact now that I have tried to tangle this all out I feel like it is even more tangled than when I started.
The upshot is to go see the movie if you like these kind of hairbrained plots where a bunch of guys are being young, dumb, and stupid, almost in the Gokusen vein but without any real moral at the end. I think they're trying to express that "surely, someday" these guys will get their lives back together after screwing them up by blowing up the school, but it's not really clear how that will ever work out. I had to admit that the most interesting part was watching Koide in a role that wasn't as a nice boy for once, though I'm not sure it suits him as well. I'd like to hope that unlike Oguri Shun, Koide will go back to playing dopey romantic comedy leads and I will continue to actually watch him in movies. In some ways I think he's kinda like a Japanese version of John Cusack, if that makes any sense.