This above all: to thine own self be
true,
And it must follow, as the night the
day,
Thou canst not then be false to any
man.
- Polonius,
Hamlet I,iii, 78-9
Polonius` words of farewell to his son
Laertes in the first act of Hamlet
sum up the moral message of director Fujirō
Mitsuishi’s live action adaptation of Hiromi
Morishita’s award-winning manga Osaka
Hamlet. The film intricately
intertwines the coming of age stories of three brothers – Masashi, Yukio, and
Hiroki Kubo beginning with the
death of their deadbeat Dad.
Embarrassingly, their mother (Keiko Matsuzaka) does not appear to be in
mourning at all and even more worryingly, their long lost Uncle Takanori (Ittoku Kishibe) moves into the house
and tries to make himself useful.
There could not be three more
unalike brothers than the Kubo boys. The
eldest, Masashi (Masahiro HIsano),
is a quiet, bookish type who is inspired to boldly come out of his shell when
falls head over heels for a beautiful, wayward older woman he meets by chance. In order to get to know Yu-chan (Natsuki Kato) better, he poses as a
college student and even humours her cringe-worthy father fixation.
The middle brother, Yuki (Naoyuki Morita) is a thug who bullies
others and seems to enjoy getting into violent scraps with other thugs. When he hears that the geek of the school has
called him “Hamlet” he is at first offended because another kid at the school
has a hamster named "Hamlet". Upon
threatening the young man over the perceived insult, he learns about the play
by Shakespeare and is actually interested enough to take his first book out
from the library. At first, he cannot
comprehend the language in the play, and has another outburst when he discovers
Hamlet’s unusual relationship with his mother.
The most interesting part of Yuki’s character development is how he
comes to terms with Shakespeare’s text. Another
Shakespearean element to Yuki is his capacity for extreme violence which
recalls some of Shakespeare’s bloodier plays (ie. Mercutio vs. Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet).
The youngest brother, Hiroki (Tomoya Otsuka), is coming to terms with
the fact that he would rather be a girl.
His family is remarkably understanding – even the thug Yuki whom one
could imagine harassing people for being different. “Koki” sports an androgynous haircut and
wears a pink T-shirt. The one person he identifies with most is his Aunt Aki (Manami Honjo) who is in the hospital with cancer. Aki is also a bit different and enjoys role
play and dressing up in costumes. Some
of the more touching moments in the film come when Koki visits his aunt in the
hospital.
Even Koki’s classmates are
supportive of him being true to himself. When
they decide to put on a class production of Cinderella, they collectively
decide that Koki would be the best to play the lead role and cast a girl in the
role of the prince. The climax of the
film comes when the play is put on and poor Koki has to endure taunting from
three bullies in the audience as well as bad behaviour from other parents. This was the most uncomfortable scene in the
film as the acting was over-the-top and extremely unlikely. First of all, it is not unusual in Japanese
culture for men to play female roles, and secondly, the dialogue was really
unlikely. It turned an otherwise decent
film into a TV sitcom for a few scenes.
The storylines of each of the family
members have one thing in common: role play.
Masahi is pretending to be older than he is and role playing the father
Yu-chan never had, Yukio has carefully constructed a tough guy façade for
himself, and young Hiro-kun is getting to live out his fantasy by playing
Cinderella in his school play. Even
their uncle is playing at being a house husband, even though he himself is not
sure he is able to fulfil that role in their family.
The theme of role play and even the plot have much more in common with A Midsummer Night’s Dream than Hamlet.
Like A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Osaka Hamlet has three interlocking
plots and is a kind of comedy of errors.
It’s a decent little drama with much of the credit for originality of
plot going to the excellent mangaka Hiromi Morishita.
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012
I saw a special screening of this film hosted by Nippon Connection in Frankfurt. It is also available on DVD:
