Last Quarter
Director: Ken Nikai
Actors: Chiaki Kuriyama, Hiroki Narimiya, Hyde
Year Released: 2004
Genre: Drama
See Also: Nana, Moon Child
I must have the soul of a 15-year-old Japanese girl because I just can't get enough of melodramatic fluff like Nana, Kamikaze Girls, and now Last Quarter. Finally available in the US on DVD, Last Quarter is a sort of goth love story with a bit of '80s, and a whole lot of mod, thrown into the mix. That any movie from any country could get this mix right—and Last Quarter certainly does—says a lot about its source material, the manga of the same name by Ai Yazawa, who also wrote the Nana manga. It's all starting to make sense now.
My soul may be that of a schoolgirl's, but my heart is certainly still male, so the fact that Chiaki Kuriyama plays the lead, Mizuki, really doesn't hurt. The film begins on Mizuki's nineteenth birthday. Her boyfriend, uber-mod Tomoki (Nana's Hiroki Narimiya), has thrown her a party at the local mod hang-out, complete with R.A.F. target cake and a performance by his band, which sounds a hell of a lot like the Who. Had this been the entire movie, I would have been perfectly happy. Chiaki Kuriyama + A-line mod dress + sparking R&B = great movie for Adam. But there's more.
Tomoki's been cheating, and with Mizuki's best friend no less, so Mizuki rushes into the night and comes across a haunted mansion straight out of a Lemony Snicket novel. Inside lives Adam, played with extra cheese by L'Arc En Ciel front man Hyde, last seen butchering the screen in Moon Child. He's supposed to be '80s cool but his rat tail braid and highlights make him more Limahl than Robert Smith, and that's never a good thing. So, Mizuki is somehow connected to Adam in the past, although she doesn't know how. He preens and looks cool, she gets hit by a truck, and then the film really gets going.
Now trapped inside the mansion, and looking really hot in a crushed-velvet goth dress with laces up the sleeves, Mizuki's amnesiac spirit is befriended by Hotaru, a high school girl who happened to get in an almost fatal accident at the moment Mizuki died. They're connected, you know. Hotaru sets about solving the mystery of Mizuki's situation, her connection to Adam, and why Adam looks like such a huge asshole all the time.
Last Quarter is really melodramatic but in a fatalistic, Victorian, teenage crush-kinda way, a way that anyone who ever wore a lot of black or listened to The Smiths can understand. Yes, very cool, but why does Adam have to be so lame? That's really my problem with this movie: I can understand Mizuki being stuck on Tomoki—he's a mod! But why Adam? Aside from the cool name (ahem), he's just not all that. But I guess that's where my heart and soul diverge. Were I truly a 15-year-old Japanese girl, I might already be dead from unrequited Hyde love. But I'm not, so I can only assume it's one of things that make you go hmm.
Otaku Alert: I saw Chiaki Kuriyama crossing the street in Omotesando a few years ago, holding a gothy black parasol and looking mighty fine. At least, I thought it was her.
Comments