'Death Note' Movie Screens Tonight. Does Anyone Care?
Viz Entertainment and Fathom Events are showing both live-action "Death Note" films tonight and tomorrow. The "Death Note" series is essentially a light-hearted goth version of "Death Wish" with some teen angst and junior detective work thrown in for good measure. The plot goes something, [according to Fathom's web page], like this:
"DEATH NOTE is based on the hit supernatural action-mystery manga, and follows the story of Light Yagami, an ace student who finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god named Ryuk. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals mysteriously begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective "L" to investigate, and he is soon hot on the trail of Light, who must now reevaluate his noble goal. Both Light and L believe themselves to be on the side of justice, and the two match wits as they attempt to prove which one of them is 'good' and which one of them is 'evil.'"
The first film is more fun than the second because its more of a cat-and-mouse game between Light and "L," but I admit curiosity got the better of me and I watched the sequel as well. It's much more protracted, complicated and melodramatic than the original and features that annoying Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Dani California," which, if you've gone to the Regal Union Square 14 in the past month or so, you've seen plastered all over the ads they had for both films.
The real question is whether or not people will fill the seats in the numbers that most people, including myself, anticipate they will. "Death Note" is a very popular manga and while I find the concept of a a teen pulling a Chucky Bronson and dispatching the worlds' criminal at the stroke of a Bic, I'm clearly in the minority of readers. Then again, that may say something about who's reading the series, diehard manga addicts or newbies that are initiated by them. I was neither; I saw both at last year's New York Asian Film Festival, where it sold out but good.
The question of whether or not "Death Note" does well boils down to: A) Are the fan community being reached by Fathom Events, a group that caters to everyone from opera fans to Trekkies B) Do the fans mind that the films are dubbed in English or, more importantly, do they know? C) Have they already seen the film and/or just don't care?
Variety's Grady Hendrix [said on his "Kaiju Shakedown" blog] initially applauded Fathom's effort, going so far as to say that perhaps making films like "Death Note" a special event rather than a week-long run at niche theaters the solution that "Asian film" needs to get the money it deserves. After discovering that the films would be dubbed, he retracted that statement. I agree that perhaps dubbing is just par for the course when it comes to anime fans so it might make little to no difference. Then again, does anybody know that it's dubbed?
Dubbing aside, it's a damn fine question whether or not this the right move for "Asian film" to make to stay financially viable. Manga and anime adaptation are tapping into an already lucrative vein so it's hard to say whether tonight and tomorrow's figures mean diddly in the long run. But hey, it's a new tack and that's always something to keep an eye out for, right? Who knows? Maybe films like "The Host" that are of interest to the arthouse rat and the plebeian alike will benefit from such forwarding thinking...or not.
The "Death Note" films will screen tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm at the Clearview Chelsea Cinemas (260 West 23rd Street), Regal Cinemas Union Square Stadium 14 (850 Broadway) and, for the intrepid viewer, National Amusements Edgewater Multiplex Cinemas (339 River Road) in Edgewater, New Jersey. "L: Change the World," a live-action spin-off of the series, will be shown at this year's New York Asian Film Festival; check [the festival's website] for showtimes and tickets.