Kagen no tsuki   2004   Japan Last Quarter
Last Quarter Image Cover
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Director:Ken Nikai
Studio:Geneon [Pioneer]
Writer:Ken Nikai, Ai Yazawa
IMDb Rating:6.3 (427 votes)
Genre:Drama, Romance
Duration:112 min
Languages:Japanese
IMDb:0440532
Amazon:B000FC2EWU
Search:NetflixYouTube
Ken Nikai  ...  (Director)
Ken Nikai, Ai Yazawa  ...  (Writer)
 
Chiaki Kuriyama  ...  Mizuki Mochizuki
Hiroki Narimiya  ...  Tomoki Anzai
Tomoka Kurokawa  ...  Hotaru Shiraishi
Motoki Ochiai  ...  Masaki Miura
Simon Britton  ...  Evil Eye Bassist
Hyde  ...  Adam
Ayumi Ito  ...  Sayaka Kamijo
Takanori Jinnai  ...  
Reika Kirishima  ...  
Maki Meguro  ...  
Anna Nakagawa  ...  Sayaka's mother
Ken Ogata  ...  Doujima
Nao Ohmori  ...  
Christopher Pellegrini  ...  Assistant Director
Sakura  ...  
Koichi Nakayama  ...  Cinematographer
Kuniaki Haishima  ...  Composer
Comments: A good movie, maybe, to those it's meant for, but not me.

I'm sorry for perhaps unfairly skewing the rating on this film by giving it two stars, but I could barely sit through it. I don't think it is necessarily a poorly made film. It's a film clearly targeted at Asian early- and pre-teens with its inclusion of super-secretive Japanese rock star Hyde in a prominent, though not leading, role. Every time he appeared on screen I would roll my eyes and groan because he looked like a Keith Partridge wannabe trying to appear tough by smoking cigarettes. He might be a talented musician but he's a terrible actor, at least in this film.

The rest of the cast did a credible job. Model, actress, and hair-do, Chiaki Kuriyama is always refreshing on screen. Western audiences may recognize her as Gogo from Quentin Tarentino's Kill Bill Vol 1. She appears to play the piano quite well, vamping on the film's musical theme, "Last Quarter", a couple times. I liked the theme a lot, but in the end, this modern fairy-tale is just too sugar-coated and precious for my aged sensibility.


Summary: Do you believe in love after death? On the eve of her 19th birthday, Mizuki (Kuriyama) doesn't have a lot to celebrate about. Her mother recently committed suicide, her stepfamily bothers her, her boyfriend has been cheating on her and her best friend has betrayed her. Hurt and disillusioned, Mizuki runs from everything and is drawn by some unknown force to a dilapidated estate. Deep within the house Mizuki discovers the mysterious Adam (Hyde), playing a hauntingly familiar melody on the guitar. Melancholy and full of secrets, it seems that Adam, and the house, have a strange, irresistible link to Mizuki. Can Mizuki's boyfriend and a couple of well-meaning schoolchildren uncover the secret of what happened 19 years ago and free Mizuki before the last quarter of the moon falls?


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