Quick Review #34: "Seiyoku"

Title: Seiyoku / 正欲

Rating: 6.5/10

Recommended for: 

Those who like thought-provoking stories about controversial social themes as well as Aragaki Yui and Isomura Hayato

Liked:

- The premise of the story itself was intriguing to begin with. The title literally means "correct/right" and "desire" if the Kanji characters are taken apart on their own. As such, the entire movie focuses on the central question of what it means to have the "right type of desire". Is it something that's socially acceptable? Or is it something that the majority of society pursues or believes in? There's quite a bit of food for thought as you go through the lives of the key characters who have no apparent links to one another but are brought together by an incident.

- The acting from the cast especially Inagaki Goro, Aragaki Yui and Isomura Hayato was extremely memorable. Inagaki was really successful in showing how much of a detestable jerk and a pitiful loser his character could be at the same time while Aragaki and Isomura had such great chemistry (not in the romantic sense) and made their characters so endearing yet somewhat detached and hard to understand too. It sure must have been tough to juggle these polarising traits in their characters within the constraints of a single movie.

Disliked: 

- The biggest issue I felt was the structure of the story and its delivery method. Given that the movie is based on a novel, you would have expected that the adaptation should be at least sound structurally as long as the storyline doesn't deviate too much. However, watching it from the perspective of someone who has never read the novel, I couldn't help but feel that while the premise or rather concept had lots of room for exploration and discussion, the story itself was barely scratching the surface. Further research after watching the movie also made me realise that there were some differences in the story setting and developments between the novel and the movie. I do not know whether these changes were responsible for creating this mismatch between the concept and the execution but I felt that it was a pity that such a theme seemed wasted somehow. The ending while leaving the viewers to come to their own conclusions on whether the so-called abnormal desires deserved to be "punished" in that manner, it also felt like an over-simplistic conclusion that trivalised the struggles that these characters had in life.