Book Review - Aimless Aegis

Movie review

Original novel of "Aegis" is a huge story. 654 pages of 2-column, small fonts tell the complicated and surprising grand scheme, and the human story of each character. When I read the original novel, I felt so excited and read it through in 3 days, sacrificing my sleep.

So naturally, when I started watching the movie, I was wondering how they shrank down the story into the 2hr 8min movie format. I knew it was a mistake, but I could not help it. And it WAS a mistake. The movie keeps the bone of the original novel, but the meat has a different taste. It certaily is another creature.

The story's vertical thread is "the fight". One of Japan's Marine Self Defence Forces' Aegis warship revolts against its government, together with the terrorists from a "certain" Asian country hostile to Japan. They have the high -tech biochemical weapon strong enought to destroy whole Tokyo and threatens Japanese government. Two men are forced into this deadly fight while the government is forced to face the facts they have been trying to ignore for the past 60 years.

The horizontal thread is the human relationships and passion to something. The petty officer and the mysterious young crew, father and son, ties to one's collegues and comrades, love to his/her own country - each fights for one's own love and passion.

The movie does not tell each character's story in depth like the original novel does, and instead, shows graphical implications that requires the viewers' imagination. The story line is concentrated on the fight on the ship and the contrasting confusion in the government meeting room. The movie's scheme is made possible by the excellent acting by the actors and the powerful image of
t he ship, the fighter planes, and the vast ocean backdrop.

The main role, the petty officer Hisashi Sengoku, is played by Hiroyuki Sanada ( "The Last Samurai", "The Twilight Samurai") with the great skill - his transition from a regular middle-management guy to a fighter is so convincing, and his actions are so powerful as usual. All the main actors, including Akira Terao (sub-captain of the ship), Kiichi Nakai (the terrorist), Koichi Sato (the intelligent office leader) and Ryo Katsuji (the mysterious young crew) are really impressive, and several other actors, including the terrorist members, revolt members, and the government people have left strong impressions as well. In Japanese, "kakko-ii" (good-looking, cool, exciting..) is the word that comes up to my mind to describe all those characters. It turns out that they are all "samurais" in their own meaning.

The Self Defence Forces (both Marine and Air) gave the unprecedented cooperation to this movie, saying that the story reveals the realistic human beings in their organizations, not the catoonish, simplified war-machines that often appears in novels, movies, and comics. Their support made the realistic and powerful images possible and gives the "Top Gun"-like upbeat excitement to this rather dark and bloody story.

The original writer Harutoshi Fukui says that he is aiming to expand the territory of "novels" by collaborating with movies and other media, and accordingly, many spun-off products have been introduced before the movie release, such as comics, video games and model ships. He is involved in two other movies that were released this year ("Lorelei" and "Sengoku Jieitai 1549").

In many ways, I believe it is an unprecedented film in Japan, and that the movie itself is living up to its unprecedented-ness. This is not an easy-to-swallow fast food. It requires viewers' digestive effort to fully enjoy its real taste. At the same time, it is not a difficult-to-understand, self-satisfactory product. It is simply a large-scale, all-star, exciting political-action movie. Very well constructed, and very well acted. I still feel a chill when I remember some of the impressive scenes from the movie. And it also gave me a food-for-thoughts about the identity of my country. I hope the movie will be released in many other countries, as it is something that Japanese movie industry should be proud to show to the world.

(July, 2005)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Following is the book review of the original novel by Harutoshi Fukui.

Sengoku is an old-fashioned petty officer who loves his ship, Aegis warship “Isokaze”, and his crew. Kisaragi is a young crew on Isokaze from a broken family and never opens his heart to anyone. They set on to Isokaze's training mission together for the first time, and through their common interest to painting, Kisaragi's heart starts to change just slightly.

In the meantime, a group of North Korean terrorists steal a secret biochemical weapon from the U.S. military base in Japan . Eventually they make their way to Isokaze and threaten the Japanese government to destroy whole Tokyo with the weapon. Sengoku's battle to save his ship and Kisaragi's soul begins.

There are two axes in this complex story; the vertical thread is the political theme, and the horizontal thread is the humanistic relationships between Sengoku and Kisaragi.

On the vertical thread, many serious questions to modern Japanese readers are asked; what do you want to do with SDF? Is there something you want to protect with those warships and weapons? Are you willing to kill someone to protect it? The answers are pretty obvious for Americans, but not for Japanese, who are not allowed to have any military forces, at least theoretically, under the constitution written during the U.S. occupation after WWII. They have been avoiding to face those questions for a long time, but what if the lives of so many people are at risk?

So there are people who act up with such big-time political themes, but Sengoku is only following his own heart. It gets revealed that even the politically acting people are motivated by their own human relationships. (Some of the people's motivation sounded too weak to me, though.) This ironic contrast reminded me of "The Twilight Samurai" a bit; there, Director Yamada ridicules the clan politics and even the samurai honor code, and says that the life goes on, that the real people's everyday relationships are far more important. Here, too, what ultimately win are the hearts and minds of people. And that heart finds out what really matters in the end, and the vertical and horizontal threads come together, when Sengoku cries out “don't despise Japanese!”

“Aegis” means a “shield” in Greek, and the English title of this novel, “Aimless Aegis” probably means “the shield (Aegis warship/SDF) without the things to protect”. In the original Japanese title, “bokoku” has much stronger connotation. It means both the betrayal act of ruining one's own country, and the people who lost their country. It could mean both in this title.

The story is very heavy, but is also highly entertaining with surprises after surprises and breathtaking action scenes, on the backdrop of the big calm ocean. I could not help overlapping Sanada-san as Sengoku while I was reading, and am so excited to see him playing this role. Kisaragi's role, however, would have been perfect for Sanada-san if it were 20 years ago, too. I cannot wait for this movie, and hope that it will be released outside of Japan as well.

(July, 2004)

<Links>

Harutoshi Fukui official Website (Japanese)

http://www.fukuiharutoshi.jp/index2.html

Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces official Website (English)

http://www.jda.go.jp/JMSDF/index_e.html

By Misty