Review of "Rapurasu no Majo" (ラプラスの魔女 / Laplace's Witch)

Before I proceed, here's the usual disclaimer: whatever is written here are my personal comments. It is just my perspective and you are definitely entitled to have a different opinion from mine. And if you haven't watched this and don't want to see the spoilers ahead, please feel free to skip the review.

First of all, let me explain what the title means. The name "Rapurasu ラプラス" refers to the surname of French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace. The meaning of Laplace's Witch is actually the theory of casual determinism which states that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature. It later became known as Laplace's Demon. And in this film, Hirose Suzu's character Uhara Madoka calls herself Rapurasu no Majo (Laplace's Witch) for some reason which will be explained as the story progresses.



The movie starts with two murders of two seemingly unrelated men who died due to hydrogen sulphide poisoning. The problem is, the men were found out in the cold and snowy outdoors of hot spring towns far from each other which made it impossible for hydrogen sulphide to accumulate till the extent that it could kill them. Sakurai Sho plays a geochemistry professor Aoe Shusuke who is approached by detective Nakaoka Yuji (Tamaki Hiroshi) and firmly denies that there is any likelihood of any foul play using hydrogen sulphide. Nonetheless, Nakaoka continues his investigations while Aoe meets Uhara who wants him to bring her to the crime scenes as she is searching for a missing friend. It is only till later that Aoe comes to know who Uhara is searching for and why she seems to be able to predict the future.

Meanwhile, there is another story which again seems unrelated but actually isn't. Amakasu Saisei (Toyokawa Etsushi), a movie director, catches the attention of Aoe and Nakaoka because his own daughter apparently tried to commit suicide using hydrogen sulphide and ended up causing the death of Saisei's wife and his son Kento to slip into a coma. Throughout the first half of the movie, you don't get to see the face of Kento but it is almost a no-brainer that he is played by Fukushi. To be honest, the truth behind this storyline is far more interesting than what happens over at the other side because there is little progress in the ongoing investigation.

To be honest, I wasn't keen on watching this movie when news of its production first came out. Much as I like Sakurai Sho, I cannot bring myself to deny the fact that his acting tends to be inconsistent and is very much dependable on the nature of his character and how much space he is given to express himself. Just looking at his dramas so far, the only two which I liked were "The Quiz Show" which allowed him to show his skills as a host honed over the years when forcing the targets into a corner and "Kazoku Game" where he was really phenomenal in switching between the good and bad sides of his character helped by the unexpected storyline. I haven't watched the latest offering from him i.e. "Saki ni umareta dake no boku" although I read some pretty good comments about it.

And because of this inconsistency in his performance, I was worried about whether he would be able to pull this off especially with this suspense story built on relatively complex scientific concepts. It certainly didn't help that Fukushi was part of the main cast because I have very little confidence in his acting. It's strange though because when he was playing Ayase Haruka's love interest in "Kyou wa kaisha yasumimasu", he didn't fare that badly. Then again, that younger-guy-heartthrob role probably didn't need a lot of acting skills because the story itself helped him to turn on the charm and become a sensation overnight especially because of "kabedon". Sad to say, his performances after that didn't impress me much. As for Hirose Suzu, I know that she has been widely praised for her acting despite her tender age but sometimes, there are just some actors or actresses who you are not so keen about for one reason or another. And for me, Hirose happens to be one of them.

When I saw that the director was Miike Takashi, I was even more surprised because he didn't come across as someone who could do such a suspense thriller. I haven't watched that many of his films but I always thought of his films as more about action, gore or violence. For an intellectual story like this without much physical action (supposedly), I wondered whether Miike was the right guy for the job.

Subsequently when the supporting cast was announced, I was actually pleasantly surprised to see names like Tamaki Hiroshi, Toyokawa Etsushi, Shida Mirai and Lily Franky in the lineup. This sort of gave me some hope that this film might turn out to be OK after all. Then again, when I remembered the star-studded cast in "Mugen no Juunin" or "Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken", I had a bad feeling that I was being too optimistic.

Personally, I do like Higashino Keigo's novels. However, real-life adaptations of his novels tend to be hits and misses so I have learnt to manage my pre-viewing expectations after being disappointed a couple of times in the past. Granted that I haven't actually read the original novel, I have no way of judging whether this movie did a good job in adapting the story. All I can say that it certainly did not make me interested enough to go and check out the novel.

For me, the biggest problem is the serious lack of suspense even though this is supposed to be a suspense story. The so-called biggest question of whether the natural phenomenon could be controlled was dealt with in such a slipshod manner that it became secondary and forgettable. It seemed as if the answer to how and why the phenomenon happened didn't matter anymore. Meanwhile, the supposedly "side story" involving the Amakasu family turned out to be the main story in the end so it effectively reduced Aoe and Nakaoka to mere bystanders observing the events unfold rather than active participants in solving the murder cases.

In terms of the cast lineup, Aoe is the lead but he gets relegated more and more to the sidelines as the movie develops. Come to think of it, the title of the story already suggests that Uhara is the lead rather than Aoe so it makes Sakurai look really awkward as the lead since Aoe is neither the one initiating or leading the investigation nor one of the key parties in this whole case. In fact, Aoe is like a passive party led along by Uhara and positioned like an onlooker right till the end. To put it really bluntly, Aoe sticks out like a sore thumb because his "contribution" is to prove the unlikeliness of the poisoning taking place in the outdoors and not vice versa. That's a great pity because even if Sakurai wanted to do something about his acting, he literally had his hands tied. It will take someone with extremely good acting skills to turn such a situation around.

For those looking forward to seeing the usual smart-looking Sakurai, you may be quite disappointed too because there seemed to be a deliberate effort to make him look dorky and older than his actual age so as to appear convincing as a professor whose students find his lectures boring. Surprisingly or should I say not, Aoe has come to terms with this and even feels thankful that there are students who still take his course in this time and age, much to the amusement and bewilderment of his assistant played by Shida. Now that we are on the subject of Aoe's assistant, you certainly do not need to have Shida play such a small role because she hardly gets to do anything other than be nosy about Aoe's involvement in the case or getting him to do something useful rather than laze around.

Talking about the supporting cast, most of them were in rather forgettable roles except for Toyokawa and Lily Franky. And that was precisely why I was wary of initially because having so many big names does not necessarily equate to great performances. There is simply not enough time and room for everyone to do their thing. Sadly, this film proved my hunch right. For example, Tamaki's character was supposed to be a detective working on this case but I really can't remember what he did other than arguing with Aoe whether the phenomenon causing the murders could be created by people or is actually something which happens naturally. Sato Eriko's role as one of the victims' widow was simply a joke especially in the climax scenes. No doubt that Sato is probably not known as a strong actress, I didn't think that she was that bad but it has more to do with the way her role was designed rather than her own performance.

Toyokawa had a really meaty role as Amakasu Saisei but I couldn't help but chuckle at the final scenes which were so exaggerated and somewhat corny. It sort of killed the momentum he had built up throughout the film because the story could have made Saisei a lot more sinister and evil. However, the ending made him look so wimpy and pathetic. Lily didn't appear for that many scenes but his character's conversation with Aoe was quite well-done. Too bad his character seemed too one-dimensional due to his limited appearance in the movie.

Comparatively, Hirose and Fukushi had meatier roles. In Hirose's case, the title already hints at her importance in this story and she is effectively the link between the ongoing investigation into the strange deaths and the Amakasu father-and-son mystery. It's obvious from here why Hirose is earning a lot of praise for her acting but this is probably not one of her best performances. When compared to her co-stars though, she certainly does stand out on her own virtue regardless of how badly designed her role was.

Fukushi had the good luck or rather bad luck of starring opposite her because it just makes him look so weak in comparison. It also certainly doesn't help that Kento's character seemed stripped of emotions even till the climax where he should show a bit of that silent boiling rage towards his father. However, this may seem like a tall order for Fukushi who appeared a little bit here and there in the second half of the film so there is a lack of continuity for him to build up the momentum. As such, it may be difficult for the audience to relate to how Kento felt and understand the motive behind his actions or even root for him. I certainly didn't care whether he was successful or not in his revenge.

I usually do not like writing reviews of movies which I will be very critical of but in this instance, I just couldn't help letting out my frustrations towards this movie. I might have been more disappointed if I had read the novel beforehand and made comparisons so in a sense, I'm thankful that I didn't do that. However, this movie also effectively killed off any remaining desire on my part to read the novel.

That being said, I hope that there will be no more of this series, at least not directed by Miike. I have to say, I don't think his style suits this kind of suspense stories especially looking at the climax scene which is more like a sci-fi film rather than suspense thriller. Considering that the pre-story of Laplace's Witch was released this year, there is a likelihood that there will be a sequel if this movie had done reasonably well enough in the box office. If there ever is a sequel, there needs to be a lot more done to make sure that whoever is in your cast lineup gets a decent amount of space to act properly and the story must have its loopholes plugged for it to make sense. Given that Kento disappeared at the end, it probably means that there is room for another movie which I don't know will be good news or not even for Fukushi fans.