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Moon Child Director: Takahisa Zeze Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 119 minutes Studio: TLA Releasing Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-05-18 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 "Vampire rock-star gangsters! ye gods..." Wow, what can I say? Camui Gackt secretly wants to star in porno. Come on, a film about a vampire and his gangster buddies? The movie was good, for all that it could have been. After all, getting a part in a movie is easy for popstars. They don't have to act - they don't even have to hire a decent producer. They just show up and they make money. This might have been the case, except that Hyde felt like making an effort. One might have difficulty differentiating between his lust, and his starvation-induced delirium, but then, the director of this film is used to working in porn, and that may simply be style. Overall, this movie was more like a photoshoot than a story. All major characters were played by attractive actors, regardless of their talents, with flashy hairstyles and tight fitting pants. The artful cinematography only accentuated these good looks, entertaining numerous shots of Gactk's crotch, or Hyde in a disheveled state. Despite projecting all the curb appeal of a successful action-drama, Moonchild steals too much to work. Between unexplained Matrix moves (how can humans dodge bullets?), and a recycled premise, there isn't much room for anything except characterization. The actors generally fail to supplement what the script leaves out. As iconic as Gackt and Hyde are, it would be difficult for anyone to overcome their real-life personas and recreate convincing characters. Exacerbating matters, Gackt helped to write the script. Several issues come to question that the average audience member cannot identify with. How many humans, for example, can sympathize with a vampire's agony of never aging? On the flip side, we might envy that immortal youth. Gackt appears particularly vulnerable in one scene when Hyde (the vamp) agonizes over his age. I suppose the implication was that Gackt though Hyde would abandon him, because of the age differences, but I also wondered if they were hinting at another fear. For these beautiful actors, looks are everything. The fear of losing beauty to age, and thus eradicating the core of one's fanbase, status, and income, seems to me a real terror. Instead of exploring the human angle of the question, the movie drones about the vampire's plight. We are left to assume that being a bloodsucker is somehow worse than being a gangster, even though the gangsters kill with reckless abandon, and usually for money. Gackt, the gangster, comes off as an idiot. I never was quite sure if that was his character, or just him. Just like a rockstar, he struts across the screen with a believable arrogance, style, and rampant sexuality. He never becomes upset, he just is upset. He screams and screams and generally irritates. Amazingly, when he plays for quieter roles, such as a shy lover, he comes out all right. The whole cast seems like they're trying to hard to make an unworkable theme work. The actress playing Yi-chen outplayed most other actors. She could convey emotions without script, or sounds, providing the most dramatic and convincing character of all. I only wish her character had more screen time, and more direct involvement in the plot. Her brother, played by Wang Leehorn, ultimately never fills in what the script left out. His character is shafted. The movie jumps from when all characters are chummy to when all characters are pulling guns on each other. Although some attempt is made to explain, it falls on its face. Changes in a painting coincide with changes in a woman's life (and not in a Dorian Grey fashion either). Hyde does wonderful posing against a set of lights, strung on bars, foreshadowing and expressing. Not a bad soundtrack, dangit. Could have been expanded (the main theme is played repetitively and is painfully short), and perhaps a full recording of the song that Gackt and Hyde wrote might have been played at the ending. The audience does get a sample of their vocal talents, but its brevity agonizes. What upsets me most, besides Gackt's acting, is the lack of characterization and general aloofness of the authors. Assuming that we psychically know all the nuances of the story, they expect us to mourn for characters that we barely know ourselves - and the fact that more people continue dying in every scene hardly helps this. A few jokes work, and I perceived a joke made at another rockstar, but that might be my imagination. It was all in the costume, and besides that not enough else to note on. "Engrossing Japanese film" Reading the blurb on the back of the DVD, I expected this to be a vampire/action flick, and while there is plenty of action, it is first and foremost a drama. I wanted to add that I had not heard of the leads before; apparently they are popular rock stars in Japan. I intend to check out their music when I have time. The plot is intriguing. The film follows the lives of several street urchins. The two boys work together to steal so that they can provide for themselves. One of them comes across a severely wounded vampire and saves his life and is rewarded by being turned into a vampire. The rest of the movie then deals with the interplay and relationships between several humans and one vampire, all of whom are friends. The vampire role is not glorified. To the contrary, the vampire considers it a curse because he has to live off the lives of others, which he loathes so much that he often does without feeding on humans for extended periods of time. He also doesn't like the idea that he will outlast his friends. But it comes in handy in their life of crime. As they grow older,a love triangle develops between the woman, whom they have known since she was a street urchin, and the two boys who are now men. We also watch as their life of crime escalates into full-scale armed robbery. The non-vampire's brother, who has a pizza store, delivers drugged pizza to the business they plan to rip-off. He always seems to mess up though, by not putting enough drugs to knock out the guards or by delivering too late. This of course provides a pre-text for some good gun battles. During the robbery of a local organized crime gang, they meet and team up with a Taiwanese kid whose out for revenge after the gang raped his sister. He then becomes part of the group of friends and we see them hanging out together as young adults and having fun at the beach in the moonlight. These "fun years" are important because as they grow older, the drift apart and become harder and more cynical. Eventually the Taiwanese leaves to join the local Taiwan mafia and "be with his own people", the non-vampire marries the woman and they have a daughter, the brother with the pizza business becomes the owner of a bar, and the vampire becomes more cynical. The relationships become more complex as they grow older and the film's real strength is in watching the complexity of the relationships evolve with the added twist that one of them is a vampire. I don't want to give away the ending but it is very poignant and the movie is full of very deep and touching scenes. This is one of the most interesting and unusual films I have watched in a long time and I HIGHLY reccomend it. "this deserves more than 5000 stars!" I heard about this movie before it was even realeased in Japan and I wanted it more than anything! I do love Gackt and Hyde as musicians, but they are both excellent actors as well. The emotional rollercoaster that this movie takes you on is worth every second. The story is deep; sad, happy, exciting, everything you could want for in a movie is in this film that Gackt wrote. He truly has a wonderful writing talent. I think that this is the perfect way for him to complete his Moon story. There are not enough words in any language to truly convey how wonderful this movie really is no matter how long a review I write, but I hope that this at least inspiers you to see this moving film. "Could have been better..." However, it far exceeded my expectations considering both gackt and hyde were first-time actors. Taro Yamamoto played an extremely lovable pizza delivery boy and delivered (no pun intended) some very funny moments in the first half of the film. The abrupt shift from lazy and casual enjoyment of friendship to a life of angst and loneliness was a bit hard for me to adjust to. To say anymore may spoil the film for some people, so i'll just leave it at that. gackt's mandarin was very good in this film, and hyde's wasn't bad, although you can really tell he wasn't comfortable with the language. Wang lee hom was decent enough - however, i wasn't really convinced of his character until the last 10 minutes of his screentime - oops, a little late. The actress who played wang lee hom's younger sister was a mystery to me - that is, a mystery why they cast her for the role at all. Her acting wasn't necessarily bad, but she just didn't seem very into her role. And not to mention that she delivered her (very few) lines choppily and with not much feeling. I honestly feel they could have picked a better actress for this role. "This film will make Gackt and/or Hyde fans out of anyone" I found out about this movie totally by accident. I was doing research on the Japanese rock star Hyde (who plays Kei, the main vampire character in this movie) and found out that he was in a movie. Okay, cool! Rock stars in movies are cool...well sometimes. Watched the movie and was totally taken by the cool action scenes, the comical moments in the film, and darker side of the movie. The cast is what makes the movie totally interesting. You have Hyde (Lead singer of L'Arc~en~Ciel) as Kei, vampire who was befriended by the child who saved him. Gackt (Once lead singer or Malice Mizer, now a solo artist) as Sho, the kid who saved Kei. Leehom Wang as the rival to Sho's gang (Chinese-American Pop Singer). Well I have yet to find out where the girl Zenny comes from, but she plays the generic female role as Leehom's sister who is mute. Nevertheless, the movie flows logically through time and you see how the characters grow through the years, especially Gackt's and Leehom's characters. It's a movie about friendships and how things change through time, for better or for worse. I suggest watching the movie at least once. The second time around, I caught a lot more of the underlying themes and details that the director put in so carefully. This movie is a must have for anyone who enjoys dramas or action movies. In addition, the theme song that is sung over and over again by various characters in the film, "Orenji no Taiyo" is one of the best songs! Buy the Cresent album by Gackt to hear the full version with Gackt and Hyde!! or just look up the translated lyrics. Great song sung by two great vocalists... Oh, and at the end of MoonChild: Have any of you seen "The Returner"? Does the girl look familiar to you??