Based on a best-selling comic by Obata Takeshi and directed by Kaneko Shusuke, the Death Note duology was not a J Horror shocker, but a mix of cop thriller, seishun eiga (youth movie) and two-player arcade game, wrapped in a stylish manga-esque package. Collectively Death Note and the follow-up Death Note: The Last Name became the biggest Japanese live-action hit of 2006, grossing $68 million.
The hero, a brilliant college student named Light Yagami (Fujiwara Tatsuya), finds a mysterious notebook with "Death Note" on the cover and learns that he can kill simply by writing the victim's name in it, shock quickly gives way to what can only be called devilish glee. Light's first victims are criminals who presumably deserve their fate, but when the cops close in, led by Light's detective father (Kaga Takeshi) and aided a reclusive detective named L (Matsuyama Kenichi), Light becomes their deadly enemy, with nary a flicker of regret. The film's center on the duel of wits between Light and L, with his pasty complexion, permanently hunched back, addiction to sweets and kohl-rimmed eyes fixed to the computer screen. L was the quintessence of geekdom, but his mysterious air of genius and what might be called his unique fashion sense also made him cool to millions, as well as an inspiration for thousands of Halloween costumes.
So when the producers of the Death Note films decided to make a spin-off, L change the WorLd, they naturally focused on L, with Matsuyama again playing the role.
This time, though, L is not battling Light, who (spoiler alert) did not survive the second film. Instead his opponents are members of a crazed environmental group who want to "cleanse" the world of its excess population by infecting it with a deadly virus. The story of how L is recruited to save humanity is convoluted. Suffice to say that he becomes the guardian of a mute Thai boy - who's been traumatized by the ravaging of his village by the virus, while trying to rescue a girl trapped in a hospital's infectious diseases lab, who becomes infected herself. And he's discovered that he has only 23 days left to live - his name and date of death have been inscribed in the fatal notebook. Can L save himself - and the kids, of course, before the virus completes its deadly work?
Directed by Nakata Hideo, best-known internationally for his work in the Ring J-Horror series and its remakes, the film has the pace and dynamism of a Hollywood thriller - the producers no doubt have visions of the Michael Bay remake dancing in their heads. But it also has its share of thriller cliches, starting with L's ticking time bomb of a life span, as well as the sort of over-caffeinated acting that is common enough in Japanese medical melodramas, but harder to find in Nakata's J Horror films. (His ghosts, especially, didn't go in for histrionics.)
Instead of sitting in front of a keyboard and licking a lollipop, L is required to run, dodge bullets and otherwise make like an action hero in L change the WorLd. A skilled and resourceful actor, Matsuyama tries manfully to adapt - he runs in a scuttling, bent-over way that is both funny and somehow in character, but he can't quite save L's geek air of mystery, which leaks away in the light of day and the real, physical world. It's somewhat like plunking Dracula down in a beach movie and asking him to surf. Which sounds kind of fun, come to think of it.
Mark Schilling