Norwegian Wood

In the movie Norwegian Wood, Kengo plays the key role. Norwegian Wood is an emotional movie, which is directed by Vitnamese-born director Tran Anh Hung.

This film is very beautifully crafted and is emotionally touching. It has stuning visuals and script which is combined with good performances by actors.

In starting of the movie, we can see Kizuki swimming underwater in a swimming pool to hug his girlfriend Naoko, and after few minutes we see him committing suicide by putting hose through car window. His death haunts the rest of the story. The impact of his death is not only on Naoko but also on his best buddy Watanabe.

Character of Kizuki is played by Kengo Kora, actress Rinko Kikuchi played character of Naoko. Kizuki’s best buddy’s character is played by Kenichi Matsuyama.

Wantabe is our narrator in this movie, who narrates whole script in his own way. He is from small town. He leaves his town to join a college in Tokyo. In Tokyo he meets Naoko. Romance builds up between the two. But the memory of his best buddy Kizuki always haunts them. Midori is classmate of Watanabe; she enjoys flirting with Watanabe, though she has a boyfriend. But Watanabe is committed to Naoko. But Naoko’s mental sickness keeps increasing the distance between them.

Cinematographer and director, collectively has created stunning scenes. This film is set in 1960. There is a shot of protestor charging on the streets which is a fantastic shot. They have beautifully depicted hills, countryside, clouds in the sky, and greenery in such a way that it make audience to feel as part of the movie. This showcases the abilities of the director and creativity of cinematographer to produce such entertaining experience.

Norwegian Wood is a romantic movie. But the kind of romance showed in this is a very rare kind of romance where discussion of sex dysfunction occurs without disturbing the tone of the movie.
This film will also be remembered for the performance of Matsuyama. Matsuyama plays character of a protagonist. Matsuyama is deeply in love and is doomed. But the character needed some pace to cope up with the pace of the storyline of the movie.

Mizuhara’s father dies in the movie. Due to the death of her father, she request Watanabe, not to attend her father’s funeral. She also asks Watanabe to take her to dirty porno movie. This part of the script was typically weird and wasn’t easy to digest. It is difficult for the audience to digest such kind of thing in real life, and thus, this part of movie sounds little unrealistic.  Director tried to show character of Mizuhara as a complicated college girl, and may be confused too.

Movies released in month of January are considered as movies with weak script, which tries to take advantage of New Year fever. But Norwegian Wood is a movie with a very strong script. It is one of the very rare movies which are good enough and are released in first month of a year. Certainly it is going to win many awards in upcoming months.