Limit of Love Umizaru 2

I watched the movie, "Limit of Love Umizaru 2" in the cinema yesterday and must say that this really deserves its reputation as one of the best and most-watched movies in Japan for 2006 by far. One thing to note is that the title of the movie was amended to "Umizaru 2 Test of Trust" in Singapore so for local movie-goers, do keep this in mind when you are buying tickets. By the way, this is only shown exclusively at Cathay cinemas and I viewed this at its Cineleisure outlet.

Considering the fact that I'm not an avid movie-goer and the last time when I actually visited a cinema was more than 6 months ago, I wouldn't have paid a higher price to watch it on a weekend if not for Umizaru. Then again, I work till late at night on weekdays and wouldn't have been able to visit the cinema anyway. ^__^ Thank goodness that this film performed to my expectations or else I would have regretted spending that amount of money at the cinema. Coupled with the reason that this movie was just shown in Japan during May and we are able to see it in August, I thought that it was reasonable for me to watch it in the theatre rather than wait for the DVD release.

For a start, please note that the following contains spoilers, in fact a lot of them so if you do not wish to know the storyline, you may wish to stop reading this post. As for those who are interested to know more, please proceed.

The movie starts with a plane crash site at sea where Senzaki Daisuke (Ito Hideaki) and Yoshioka Tetsuya (Sato Ryuta) are hanging on to the debris of the plane in the midst of the storm. They are trying to get two of the survivors i.e. a man and a little boy to safety but due to the harsh weather conditions, the pilot can't even find a proper place to lower the helicopter and conduct the rescue operations. Just then, the little boy is slowly slipping from the almost detached door of the plane which he has been clinging onto and Senzaki manages to grab hold of him. However, this results in the man slipping from his grasp...

Months later, Isawa Kanna (Kato Ai) goes to Kagoshima to meet Senzaki who's now her fiance but it looks apparent that she's quite insecure about the state of their relationship. Kanna drove 20 hours from Yokohama to Kagoshima for the sake of showing Senzaki the wedding dress she made but is disappointed to hear that he wants some time to think about their marriage. Kanna doesn't get the reassurance she was hoping from Senzaki as he had never proposed to her and marriage plans are all carried out by herself to date. After hearing his words, it's no wonder that Kanna is calling the wedding off and wants to return to Yokohama.

Actually, the reason why Senzaki is getting cold feet has much to do with the rescue operation at sea where he failed to save the adult. This makes him doubt whether he can be responsible for Kanna's life and happiness since he was unable to save someone before his eyes. However, he doesn't think that Kanna should get involved in this process where he's trying to think about what he should do thus causing the misunderstanding between them.

From this point onwards, that's when the action begins. A passenger ferry by the name of Clover is rammed into by another ship and suffers a huge tear of about 30m. This causes water to seep into it and the rescue team is mobilized to evacuate the passengers before the ship sinks. In addition, there are more than 100 vehicles on board which increase the possibility of the ship blowing up since the fuel in these vehicles can be ignited easily.

Senzaki and Yoshioka are also part of this operation where Senzaki happens to see Kanna on the ship too. Apparently, she had gotten sick of driving back to Yokohama and decides to take the ferry back. However, the fact that she has to leave the ship means she would have to dump her wedding dress behind. Senzaki knows how much she treasures the dress but under such circumstances, he tells her to leave it behind despite her reluctance. Just before Senzaki leaves to attend to a pregnant staff of the ship Honma Megumi (Ootsuka Nene), he promises Kanna that he will meet her again and tells her to leave the ship as soon as possible.

Senzaki attends to Honma's injuries and follows her to get to the lifeboats since she's more familiar with the layout of the ship. They happen to meet Ebihara Shinichi (Fukikoshi Mitsuru) who's trying to smoke at the car garage. Senzaki tries to stop Ebihara from using his lighter as he smells gasoline. Just before they can do anything, the ship tilts and causes the cars to shift out of control with metal chains falling from the ceiling. This results in the friction causing sparks which lights the gasoline thus an explosion happens. In the process, Ebihara's leg is injured but Yoshioka manages to help Senzaki carry Ebihara and Honma to safety.

However, that doesn't mean they will be safe from now on. What happens is that they will go through a series of ordeals which also torments those waiting for their safety on shore. I won't go into details on what goes on during this section because that forms the bulk of the action scenes which will keep you on the edge of your seat. As for the ending, just keep in mind that the hero doesn't die so you should know where the story is heading.

The picture on the right is a poster pasted on the beam of the cinema. Due to the high human traffic there and I was using my mobile phone camera to take the shot, that is why I couldn't take a better picture at higher resolution and had to settle for this. This is rather different from the promotional flyer seen above and it's obvious that they are placing Kato Ai at top priority on the poster, most probably because she's quite well-known here. It just seems awkward to me because the lead is Ito Hideaki and yet he's not featured prominently on the poster. Anyway, I can't comprehend what the local movie distributors are thinking especially when it comes to changing of the original titles to nonsensical ones. In this case, I fail to understand why they had to change it to "Umizaru 2 Test of Trust" when there was nothing wrong with the original title.

According to Cathay's website, they are going to show "Waters" soon and guess what title they changed it to? "Gigolo Wannabe"! That's rather demeaning to the movie even though the occupation isn't that well-looked upon in Japan. I'm still undecided whether I want to watch "Waters" though.

Anyway, for those watching this movie, there is the promotion of receiving a free Umizaru notebook and water bottle if you buy 4 tickets. I didn't get it since there were only two of us. One thing I noticed was that a lot of the people were there on their own and I spotted a significant number of Japanese in the audience. Another thing I have an issue about is the seat which makes you sit at an awkward angle so I got a stiff back 2 hours later. Other than that, the viewing experience was quite good.

Coming back to the review of this movie, you can be sure of action, laughter and emotions rolled into one. I found myself shedding tears at some of the scenes especially that scene when the ship sank. It was so devastating to see that because there had been a glimmer of hope that Senzaki and Co. would be safe. Anyway, you have to watch it for yourself to know what I mean.

As for laughter, I think a lot has to do with the presence of good actors who set the tempo for the little jokes amidst the gloomy atmosphere. Sato Ryuta is always there to provide comical relief when he banters with Ito. Ootsuka Nene's potrayal of a cheerful and somewhat ditzy pregnant lady who speaks inappropriate things at times really cracked me up. For example, just when the four of them i.e. Senzaki, Yoshioka, Ebihara and Honma were thinking of how to get out from the enclosed engine room surrounded by water, Honma remarked that she suddenly remembered something. Honma was a member of a love research group in school so she was telling the men that there are two endings for a relationship i.e. marriage or breakup. Just then, she finally remembered the last ending i.e. death which seemed rather inauspicious to be said at that time since they were facing the prospect of death themselves. No doubt it was a grim situation they were in, these little jokes helped to make the movie enjoyable in another way.

With regards to the action, I must say that some of the scenes reminded me of the films Titanic and Armageddon. First of all, the sinking ship brought back memories of Titanic although there wasn't any romance on board. And the reference to Armageddon seemed quite apparent when Kanna was speaking to Senzaki on the phone where everyone heard his heartfelt proposal. That seemed to coincide with what Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler were doing back then in Armageddon. Anyway, one thing which bugged me was the fact that Kanna could gain access to the command HQ so easily despite the fact that she's not an authorised personnel. It was quite different in Armageddon since I remembered that Liv Tyler's role was at the HQ right from the start, apparently with permission to watch what was going on.

When the ending credits roll, do not leave the cinema yet (none of the audience left during my session yesterday) since you get to watch a recap of the Umizaru series from the first movie to the drama and then to the finale movie. After this, you will see scenes of the cast clowning around in front of the camera where Tokito Saburo was one of the more entertaining ones. Of course, with the nice theme song, "Precious" by Ito Yuna playing in the background, this rounds up the movie in a good way.

Whether you have watched the Umizaru series, I'm sure you will enjoy this at least for the tension and humour although I think knowing how the characters developed over time would have been better since you can understand how they feel. For those who have watched it, do post your comments here.