It’s been a while, but I’m back again with another movie review. This time it’s one about the Nana films I watched recently. The anime and manga itself has been quite popular for a few years, and I was curious as to why this actually was.
The Story
Based on events in the manga by Ai Yazawa, Nana is about the adventures of two girls, who meet on the train to Tokyo, and discover they are both named Nana. Although the name is the same, their lives are completely different. One of them is an ambitious punk who is looking to break into the world of rock and roll, while the other simply wants to have a new life with her boyfriend. After moving to Tokyo while chasing their hopes dreams, their lives greatly change after meeting each other. (Wiki)
As far as the story goes, it’s your typical story. People want something new, they move to a new place and chase a their future. So far, there’s nothing new, and to be honest, I didn’t expect there to be something new and refreshing either. And so I basically watched these movies just to know what all the hype was about, and to check if I had actually missed out on something, but it seems I really didn’t.
Where the first movie really talks about both of the girls’ new found life in the big city, trying out things with their friends and the two Nana meeting each other again, the second one just tells the story of Nana 1 (Aoi Miyazaki/Yui Ichikawa) getting involved, and cheated on by her idol and leaves Nana 2 (Mika Nakashima) in search of who she really is as she seems confused with everything that’s going on around her.
For the story, I’d give a 2,5/5 for the first and a 3,5/5 for the second. It’s simple, but still watchable.
The Cast
While both of the Nana’s seem pretty well cast – one being extremely naive and another one being cold and emotionless – my point of interest lay with the choice of some other actors.
In the first film, there was Ryuhei Matsuda (Blue Spring, Nightmare Detective) who played the role of Ren Honjo, love interest of Nana Osaki, played by singer Mika Nakashima. While I’m not quite fond of his acting and I find he looks disinterested in every role I’ve seen him in, he did quite a good job in playing the character he was cast in. For the second movie, however, they replaced Ryuhei with the lesser known Nobuo Kyō. I have no idea if this had to do something with Ryuhei’s scedule, or if they just wanted to get rid of him, but so far I can still understand this change. The guys themselves were styled to resemble the right character, and as far as I could see, both of them acted the same way as well.
Ken'ichi Matsuyama as Shin
Another recasting I understood a lot less. Ken’ichi Matsuyama (Death Note, Norwegian Wood) was originally cast as Shin. The kid with the white hair, lip-to-ear piercing and the punky outfits who seemingly had run away from home. Matsuyama has always been an actor I’ve admired for his wide range of characters, but one of his lowest points must have been playing Shin. Ken’ichi was, to say the least, passive, silent and bored for the single shots we actually saw him. This was maybe the reason for him to back away from the project and leave the role to someone else for the second installment. This role eventually went to Kanata Hongo. A young boy who’s 5 years younger than Matsuyama, at least 20cms shorter and is only half as big; which were already three reasons for me to frown upon the sudden change of actors. I have to admit I really like them both as actors and I’ve been following them around for quite a while.
Kanata Hongo as Shin
I also have to admit that the both of them playing the exact same role made me interested in watching the Nana films, just because I thought it was hilarious to see two people as different as them, try and be the same person. And as I already thought, the second movie was way more hilarious to me, just because Kanata’s Shin was hardly anything like Ken’ichi’s Shin had been. In contrary to the first Shin, the second one was a lot more lively, actually spoke and held conversations, and was all of a sudden just around the height of Hiroki Narimiya‘s (Akihabara@deep) Nobu.* This problem was, most likely, solved by making Kanata wear strange high shoes to make up for the height he lacked and filming lots of his scenes while he was either sitting on a chair or on the ground.
Main lead Nana Komatsu even got an actor change, but there’s really nothing I can say about that because I hadn’t even noticed until I looked it up on the Internet. Yui Ichikawa and Aoi Miyazaki were the same for me. So I guess they did their job perfectly.
For the rest of the movies, Hiroki Narimiya was the only one who stayed consistent through the two movies and who’s character didn’t change. Lead Mika Nakashima was too busy trying to figure out her characters emotional state which made her acting sometimes a little awkward (but that just could have been the original character).
Casting would make me want to give the movies a 3/5 for both. I have to add that I absolutely have no idea how the ‘real’ characters were and how well the actors portrayed them, but when I was watching the movies, I felt like everything was alright. And even though I liked Kanata’s Shin a lot more and felt like he was a lot more in place than Ken’ichi’s, I get the feeling that the actual Shin is more like the one in the first movie.
The Music
As Nana is in the first place all about the bands Trapnest, with singer Reira, and Black Stones with Nana, the music is obviously important.
Whereas Trapnest seems more into the lines of Pop rock, and their looks are a lot more dark than the punk-outfits of Black Stones, the music that singer Ayumi Ito brought into the movie as she portrayed Reira, was fitting to say the least. Although it’s not completely my style, I didn’t mind actually listening to her songs and take notice of them.
For Mika Nakashima‘s songs however, it felt like she had to strain her voice to sound a little harsh and rockier at times. Don’t get me wrong, I like the title song Glamorous Sky, but she wasn’t really the right person to give the more punky vibe that her clothes and those of the Black Stones members told me about.
That feeling was also the reason for me to love the soundtracks I’d heard before (from the anime) a lot more than I liked the songs for either the first or the second movie. Whether it was Olivia as Reira, or Anna Tsuchiya as Nana, both of them did a great job in portraying the music for their character.
So for the music I have to give a 3/5 for both movies. I liked it, but it didn’t really fit as they wanted it to.
The End
Both Nana movies aren’t to be taken seriously if you’re not already a fan of Nana. I had fun watching them, but tried not to skip through some scenes because I just couldn’t take it anymore. And every now and then I just lay there, laughing out loud for things that probably weren’t even meant to be funny (Hiroki and Kanata, you’re hilarious, but I noticed that in Yankee-kun already).
So basically, if you’re not a fan of Nana, or any of the actors (and you desperately want to see all they’ve done in their career) I wouldn’t put these movies in the DVD-player or on your computer. Unless you just love to watch movies while knowing from the first minutes what the ending will be like.
Everything added should make around 2,8/5 for the first and 3,2/5 for the second.
Nana
Nana 2
Director: Kentaro Otani
* Ken’ichi is around 180cm while Hiroki just stands around 170cm and Kanata was even smaller at the time because he wasn’t even 16.
Trailers
