Mitsuko Delivers (2011)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: absurd, comedy
Cast: Naka Riisa, Nakamura Aoi, Ishibashi Ryo, Inagawa Miyoko, Namiki Shiori, Takeuchi Miyako, Oona Momoka, Kondo Yoshimasa, Hotaru Yukijiro, Saito Keiko
Synopsis: Mitsuko is in her last month of pregnancy, but her life is a big mess. Her parents believe that she is happily living in California, but in reality she went back to Tokyo after her African-American boyfriend dumps her when hearing about the child. In addition, she is out of money and has no place to stay, but still she believes that everything is going to be just fine.
Rating: 2/5
We all have some movies that after watching them make us think "WHAT THE RAMEN I WAS WATCHING NOW??!" and this is just like this to me. This is now officially one of the weirdest movies I have seen, but on the other hand it works! For me it was so weird to understand that it was amusing and actually made me want to see other Yuya Ishii works.

BECK (2010)

Country: Japan
Format: Movie
Genre: music, friendship
Cast: Mizushima Hiro, Sato Takeru, Mukai Osamu, Kiritani Kenta, Kutsuna Shiori, Nakamura Aoi, Brett Pemberton, Todd Shymko, Floyd Lee, Cinque Lee, Mikami Kensei, Kurauchi Sari, Shido Nakamura, Furukawa Yuta,
Synopsis: Ryusuke Minami and his sister Maho have grown up in the United States, but are now  back in Japan. Ryusuke is an amazing guitarist, but his bands always seem to fall apart. After another break up, he decides to create his own band with members that he believes in. He also meets a young high school boy Koyuki who takes interest in guitar playing. Newly formed band BECK has a fast way up with getting new acquaintances, upcoming concerts and CD debut, but every road has its ups and downs and sometimes the past just does not let go of you.
Rating: 5/5
I was more than impressed by this movie - everything was over the top - actors, acting, music, technical part, storyline - EVERYTHING!

Mizushima Hiro played the lead role of Ryusuke or Ray. I love that he can speak English really well, all thanks to the fact that he lived for 6 years in Switzerland and studied in English school. Most of the time Ryusuke is fine and normal, but he gets really irritated when someone in the band isn't improving or things do not go as he plans, easily said - he's really short tempered and when irritated he says rude things without thinking. His best friend is Eddie who became famous with his band The Dying Breed Eddie is played by Brett Pemberton - a participant in America's got talent season 6, a singer and a model, and Todd is played by Todd Shymko who is Canadian man who created Japanese band called SUPERFUNKTION and is its lead-singer.

Another really good friend of Ryusuke is Chiba - a guy who is brilliant at rapping, but is unable to feel satisfied by it and does not seem to find the place he belongs to. Kiritani Kenta made a wonderful job as Chiba. So far it's my favorite role by him. I am not a big fan of rapping if I exclude Eminem and rapping in Kpop, but I really enjoyed Kiritani Kenta in it - everything came out so naturally for him. Of course Chiba has this funky personality at times too and is almost as short tempered as Ryusuke.

Taira is the bassist and he is played by Mukai Osamu - bleach blond Mukai Osamu. I already feel that each guy I really adore has had bleach blond hair in some moment in their lives - and I am not talking only about idols. Taira is the silent hot guy, who pays attention to everyone others and understands everyone the best. He also has a weird habit of taking of his shirt on concerts. His motto should be "I have a history of taking off/losing my shirt" (Thumbs up if you know the song where the sentence is taken from)-. Anyway really hot guy, who always made me go "mmmm" whenever he was on screen.

I was impressed by the fact that Sato Takeru is so much younger from all the guys I have written before in this review and I admit that in the movie he seems even more younger than he really is. He was 19-20 when it was filmed, his character Koyuki is about 16-18 and most of the time he looks like 14-15. Some things about him will be written in Spoiler-review, because I do not want to spoil. At first, Koyuki is the perfect example of goody two-shoes - shy guy, who mostly follows and does favors for others. Until he finally breaks out from his shell.

Last but not least, the only main girl - Maho played by Kutsuna Shiori. Kutsuna Shiori was born and raised actually in Australia, that's why she felt connection with her character and that has given her a great English skills. She takes love interest in Koyuki, but the same time is tracked down by idol Yoshito - who is so over-rated by everyone. She makes the best fish-kiss scene ever, because it is so innocent and it is in the right place and everything is perfect for fish-kiss. In a weird way, I really like that scene.

Sorry, I forgot Nakamura Aoi, who is playing the part of Saku - Koyuki's friend and the drummer of the band. He is always happy and sees things positively. He is really cool character, but he is left aside most of the time. Mizushima Hiro and Sato Takeru actually did not know how to play guitar so they got lessons and practiced each free minute and night and got blisters from all that, but they were very great in the movie. As much as I know then other actors knew how to play these instruments before. The concert scenes are so amazing! I wish I had the chance to go to that concert too - I seriously love all live-concerts, especially the ones taking place outside. Their music was much better than the others on the festival, because they were real,  but others were just posers.
 Really cool music movie, which is worth watching because every actor makes such a great job in it and you can see how they enjoy it, so that all makes you enjoy it too. I forgot to mention it before, but it is based on manga by Sakuishi Harold,

SPOILER-review: I do not know if you already know or not, but they actually did not put Sato Takeru to sing - you cannot hear it. It was one thing I was looking forward to find out, if they let him sing or not, but they won't and to tell you the truth, I was satisfied with that answer! Koyuki is said to have angelic voice that takes breath away and makes you just listen, but I do not believe that there is such a voice in the world that everyone would love it. Many say that they could have recorded someone else singing and then dub it into the movie or other things like that, but that just would have been wrong. In the end it would not have been "that" voice anyway. So, I really enjoyed that they left it as it was and you can think on your own how he might have sounded. For example, I am pretty sure that if he had a higher voice then I would not have liked it - I fall in love with lower voices and they make me listen without thinking, but I know that some people prefer high voices.   

Koizora the movie (2007)

Country: Japan
Genre: romance, drama, human
Format: movie
Cast: Miura Haruma, Aragaki Yui, Koide Keisuke, Haru, Usuda Asami, Karina, Nakamura Aoi
Synospsis:  Tahara Mika (Aragaki Yui) loses her cellphone, she finds it from liberary with all contacts deleted. From that they she starts communicating with mysteriuos caller, who had found her phone. The caller turns out to be Hiro (Miura Haruma), guy with bleached hair from another class.
Rating: 2/5
It is said to be more accurate to the real story than drama, but I did not like it very much. It all went to fast. Even though it had a great cast, I enjoyed drama cast more. I am not impressed by Aragaki Yui acting and it would be better if Miura Haruma NEVER bleaches his hair. Actually I was pretty depressed for this being a first time I saw Miura Haruma acting, because he is a great actor and so on (I love him in "Kimi ni todoke"), but here.. it just isn´t his best role.
I like the fact that Haru, who plays here Aya, plays the part of Saki (Hiro´s ex-girlfriend) in drama version. I like her in Saki role more.
I almost gave it only one star and that was for the story itself, but finally I decided to give another star. If there is someone who does not want to watch 6 hours drama, then they can watch the whole story in 2 hours, but I have to say that they are pretty different!! So it is best to watch both of them and then decide, which they like better.