Dragonhead

[Silvia Groniewicz]

Hello,

I had a chance to see a preview of this movie on Tuesday and thought I'd write a bit about it.

Here are all general infos:
http://www.dragonhead-movie.jp/

The movie is based on the 10-volume manga by Minetaro Mochizuki. The basic story outline is that something terrible happens to Japan and a boy and a girl try to find their way back to Tokyo through a devastated landscape were other survivors are the ones you have to fear most. All the time they have no idea what really happened.

Packing the story of ten volumes into a movie of a little over two hours is of course not possible. Sadly it seems that a lot of key scenes did not make it into the movie and those that did were changed for no reason it seems. Characters that had an important role in the manga were reduced to simple plot devices and their real roles exchanged with other characters...

The movie itself though works quite well. The two main actors do their work well. The special effects are well done and the settings of a devastated Japan and especially Tokyo look incredible. The main consent of the previewers seemed to be that it was "good". I agree with that though it lacks the qualities to make is "very good".

It seems that it is just as difficult to make a movie out of a manga as it is to make one out of a book. There's hope though that people who watch the movie will pick up the manga :)

Silvia