Kasane

I quite randomly watched this film on a flight to Japan, but was very glad I decided to watch it as in all it was fun and held my attention right to the end.

The plot is about two aspiring actresses, one with beauty but not much in the way of talent, and the other scarred across her face but with an abundance of acting skill. Luckily (or perhaps not) the scarred one has a tube of magic lipstick given to her by her actress mother which allows her to borrow another woman's appearance temporarily, and using her talent and the beautiful actress's looks she quickly becomes a famous star.

There's one rather large plot device which is slightly unbelievable (yes, not just the lipstick), but in general it's a thoroughly enjoyable film all the way through.

The real stars here are the two real life actresses who have to play multiple "layers" of roles, sometimes playing a woman playing another woman playing another woman. At no point did I wonder who was who.

Right, well I was lured into watching the 2018 Japanese movie "Kasane" given the movie's synopsis, plus the fact that this was an Asian movie that I hadn't already seen. Sure, I had never heard about this movie from writer Tsutomu Kuroiwa, nor have I read the Manga from Daruma Matsuura, so I didn't really know what I was in for here.

And while the movie started out interesting enough, the movie started to lose its momentum and forward drive about 30 minutes into the storyline. And from that point on, director Yûichi Satô was struggling with providing an interesting narrative. Especially so since the movie's pacing slowed down to a near stand still, and nothing interesting happened as the movie trotted on.

Sure, the acting performances in "Kasane" were okay, but the actresses and actors literally had nothing worthwhile to work with in terms of an interesting storyline, script or dialogue.

I have to admit that I ended up giving up on "Kasane" 50 minutes into the ordeal. And I can honestly say that I have zero intention of returning to watch the rest of the movie, simply because I don't care one bit about the events of the storyline nor the characters.

My rating of "Kasane" lands on a three out of ten stars.

This movie is based on the manga "Kasane" made by Daruma Matsuura and it is WAY better than this adaptation. At the start, it was kinda confussing what was happening, and also the manga has a deeper story, as the protagonist isn´t just scared, but also really ugly and contantly reminded that, that´s why having a beautifull face is way more impactfull. It also has more story and more characters that make the story a thousend times more interesting, i might not be the best at describing how good the manga is in comparason to the adaptation, but, if you want to read an actual masterpiece, please give the manga a chance, i´m talking from my own love and dedication towards this univers with great characters and world building, it deserves more atention.