Live-Action Death Note: Transition to Big Screen Mostly a Success

In a special 2-night engagement, theaters across the country hosted special showings of the Japanese movie ‘Death Note’ based on the widely popular and successful Manga and Anime franchise. Now, some toon-to-movie adaptions, like ‘Transformers’, can have a pretty successful jump to the big screen. Others like ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ tend to only be grasping at nostalgia and nothing more. Death Note thankfully falls into the former category when it comes to entertainment.

For those unfamiliar with the story, ‘Death Note’ is a series about this notebook that when a name is written in it, the name of the person dies. However, there are rules to using the notebook. First off, you have to have the face of the person’s name you’re writing in your head, that way no one with the same name ends up getting killed. After the name is written, the person dies in exactly 40 seconds of a heart attack, but you also have 6 minutes and 40 seconds to write in circumstances of the person’s death.

In any case, enough with the rules, what about the story of this film? The series focuses on Light Yagami, a college student in Japan. In the film, after confronting the perpetrator of a child-killing who got acquitted, Yagami, frustrated with the lack of justice, him being a law student and the son of a prominent officer in the Japanese investigation unit, runs into an alleyway and finds a black notebook, with the words ‘Death Note’ on it. He takes it home and looks at the rules and immediately thinks its some kind of joke, so he writes the name of a criminal identified on the news, and lo and behold, he dies.

The next night, he finds himself stopped at a train crossing when he sees the same crook from that night in the bar, he pulls out the Note, writes his name, and he dies as well, in front of Yagami’s eyes, proving the notebook’s power. Emboldened by this, Yagami becomes a one-man judge, jury and executioner, killing criminals at an obscene pace which earns him the nickname ‘Kira’. This gets the worlds attention and soon an investigation starts. The head of this investigation is the enigmatic crime-solver known only as ‘L’.

It’s later shown in the film, that L is a very eccentric crime solver. In his hotel room, where the investigation moves to, there are sweets EVERYWHERE, all over the place. And he’s always seen ingesting copious amounts of high sugar foods. And the way L sits also adds to his eccentricness, up on a couch with his knees clenched to his body. But the guy is a genius no question.

Overall, the movie serves up a moral debate that will make you think about whose side you’re on. Are you on the side of ‘Kira’ raining justice through what you think is right or wrong, or are you on the side of ‘L’ making sure that criminals get their day to defend themselves, regardless of what they are accused of?

The version shown during this two-day engagement was dubbed into English using all of the same actors used for the show that airs on Adult Swim. Brad Swaile reprises his role as lead character Light Yagami and Alessandro Juliani of Battlestar Galatica fame steps in again to voice L both with positive results. However there is a certain level of awkwardness with seeing a live-action movie dubbed, but that goes away after awhile in this particular film.

There’s also the use of CG animation with the Shinigami, or death god, named Ryuk who looks like he stepped into a video game for this, but not in a bad way at all. His actions, especially when deprived of his ‘addiction’ in the movie, provides levity in spots that need it.

The movie releases on DVD in the US on September 16^th, and if the movie does well enough in this special engagement, we could very well see part 2 of this story ‘Death Note: The Last Name’ in a similar release in the future.