Death Note (Desu nôto) poster & wallpaper

Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Takeshi Kaga

Light Yagami (Or Raito) is an ace student with great aspects who's bored out of his mind. One day he finds the Death Note a notebook held by a shinigami (Death God). With the Death Note in hand, Light...( read more  read more... ) decides to create a perfect world. A world without crime or criminals. However when criminals start dropping dead one by one, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer.

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85% liked it

9,016 ratings

Unrated, 2 hrs. 6 min.

Directed by: Shusuke Kaneko

Release Date: June 17, 2006

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Flixster Reviews (3,247)

  • 366weirdmovies
    September 12, 2009
    366weirdmovies
    A law student finds a notebook deliberately dropped by the God of Death which allows him to kill anyone whose name he writes in it; soon, criminals across the world start dropping dead, while the police race to stop him with the aid of superdetective "L." Goes about its time set...( read more)ting up its premise, but just when you're ready to give up it turns into a clever cat-and-mouse game reminiscent of a battle between a mystical Moriarity and a high-tech Holmes.
  • FangsFirst
    March 12, 2009
    FangsFirst
    In recent years, I've decided to open my mind to greater possibilities of appreciation than I previously allowed. I think a lot of people would laugh, hearing that--knowing how vocally I complain about many, many things, especially current and popular ones (which thus come up mor...( read more)e often, which leads to me seeming more cantankerous because my complaints then come up more often...), but some of the people who've known me longest are often surprised at what musical artist or film or medium I'm suddenly advocating--and never for the loss of something I've liked in the past (or at least rarely). At one point in high school, I experimented with watching anime, but was turned off by a lot of bad stuff--and a lot of dubs (there wasn't much in the way of DVD back then, after all). I never really touched manga, and even lost interest in the anime I was watching dubbed then. Very recently I've picked up things just at random that seemed or sounded interesting and read or watched into them, only to find myself more caught up than I expected. Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's manga Death Note pretty quickly captured my interest, though, and I heard good things about the film adaptations, which I'd already seen an article about in, you guessed it, Fangoria. After reading the great majority of the manga (still in progress, I'm reading a few other things at the same time), I picked up the two Japanese films based on it. This (as the simplistic title probably suggests) is the first.

    A series of murders across Japan kills numerous criminals, both newly arrested and already sentenced by way of an otherwise inexplicable heart attack. The Japanese police form a task force to deal with this, the media dubbing the soul behind the murders "Kira" (realistically, we should take this name as, well, "killer," as that is what the kana would really stand for--at the last, that's the impetus behind the name choice), and puts Soichiro Yagami (Takeshi Kaga) in charge of it. His son, Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara), is a law student who is interested in becoming an investigator himself, but hacks into the police database to see how well justice is served. He's surprised, disgusted and disappointed by the number of dropped, unsolved and otherwise unfinished cases. Unsure he can believe this without seeing it, Light wanders into a bar to see one of the criminals he stumbled across online in person. Hearing this criminal laugh over his exploits, Light leaves in a rage and tosses his law books into a garbage heap. What he finds then is a notebook labelled "Death Note," which contains instructions that tell him he can kill anyone simply by writing their name in the book. A successful test leads him to believe he can create true justice in the world by removing all criminals from it--becoming the soul known to the police, later, as Kira. The prior owner of the Death Note is a shinigami (or "god of death"--basically one of many "grim reapers") named Ryuk (voiced by Shido Nakamura) who refuses to take sides but answers questions for Light as he attempts to foil the efforts of the police, and eventually those of world famous detective "L," whose identity is unknown to everyone--thus preventing his easy execution at the hands of Light. Eventually Soichiro and a small team--Mogi (Shin Shimizu), the young and excitable Matsuda (Sota Aoyama), Ukida (Ikuji Nakamura)--are brought by go-between Watari (Shunji Fuijimura) to the actual L, who asks to be called Ryuzaki (Ken'ichi Matsuyama), and seems to be the only mind capable of plotting things out far enough to match Light's brains.

    It's actually pretty difficult to go through the full plot of Death Note for anyone unfamiliar, beyond the essence: L and Light are brilliant tactical minds, capable of complex psychological traps and at cross-purposes in the world. This is the central element of all forms of the franchise (at least, I assume the anime I've yet to see also includes this, considering I understand it pretty closely follows the manga), and it's utterly fascinating to see. In poor hands, a plot like this would rapidly become laughable and unacceptable in terms of believability. Ohba and Obata's manga is utterly fascinating and page turning though, filled with twists and plots from L and Light that can make your head spin. Morality, it may surprise some to find, is rarely discussed except as an element of the logic behind the plotting. Whether Light's actions in trying to create final justice and peace in the world are justified is neither explored nor questioned (in positive OR negative tones). It's simply not the issue, because it's far more important to keep ahead of him than try to decide whether you are okay with what he does--especially if you are L, who shares enough with Light, personality-wise, that he views this as a game.

    Shusuke Kaneko brought a slightly different approach to the manga in adapting it for film, feeling that the unemotional calculations of Light and L were not quite right for film, nor was their incessant monologuing and thought process (both of which are brilliant in writing, but would become tedious pretty easily). As such, the events of Light's backstory in the film, with his interest in whether justice is being served and surprise that it isn't, as well as his exploration and angry response to discovery of the truth of this assessment, are all added to the film version and not present in the manga. In the manga, we leap straight into Light's decision to control and rule the world through fear to create peace, with a sociopathic protagonist who is interested in winning and being able to keep up his lethal plan for keeping the world in order. No time is spent on developing emotions for him as he uses almost anyone to serve his purposes, taking on girlfriends as cover and never really holding interest in them. The film Light has a steady girlfriend, though: Shiori Akino (Yu Kashii). They go on dates to go on dates, not simply because Light needs to convince the brilliant L--who already manages to suspect him--that he is innocent. This and his response to actually witnessing some of the deaths is a pretty big change--they're seen to have an emotional effect on him (other than, well, a feeling of victory and/or power). It's not an unwelcome change, though it's not a definitive improvement--or degradation, really. It's a new approach that resets our perception of Light and lets us more rapidly gain empathy for his actions by making him a more relatable character, who slowly finds the desire to win and rule rather than starting with it. The manga builds our interest through sheer suspense, wanting simply to see how the hell he can get out of it, where now we want him to because of himself.

    Kaneko's directorial background is most widely known (internationally, at least) for its inclusion of daikaiju films--most commonly cited being his trilogy of Gamera reboots in the 1990s, which brought excellent effects, smart plotting and adult sensibilities (or at least not-childish) ones to a character long relegated to silly pop songs and MST3k riffing (which of course had little effect on my love for the giant-turtle-cum-flying-saucer). He's a smart director for effects-oriented and fantasy films, with clever comments on the approach taken to the thoroughly inhuman Ryuk: he capitalized on the unreal appearance of CGI to emphasize the fact that Ryuk is visible only to the possessor of his Death Note, or anyone who touches it. The effects are quite good, and manage a very acceptable three-dimensional version of Ryuk that perfectly realizes Obata's design from the manga and anime. Any elements that ring false are easily sublimated by the very fact Kaneko intended to take advantage of in using CGI in the first place--probably the most ingenious use of it to date (or, more reasonably, the most ingenious I can think of). Acting is solid for a film that was apparently originally just for television, though I'm still a little unsure of the appearance of the choices for L and Light. Neither is quite what I would have imagined or taken from the manga images, but both have the right voices and mannerisms all the same, so perhaps that's being unfair.

    I do look forward to the sequel, Death Note: The Last Name, which I also picked up, so that I can see the rest of the plot as chopped down for film, which is probably the most interesting thing about this form of the story: despite having read it recently enough (and retaining information I read well enough) to know exactly when things deviate, Kaneko and scripter Tetsuya Oishi keep the essential columns of the story intact: what developed characters die or do, the way these events are used by L and Light is faithful, even when events are changed. Many of the best devices and plots are retained, such as Light's realization that he is under suspicion and being tailed, and his method of dealing with this, or the way that he deals with close surveillance. Ryuk is not overused and is in fact turned into a secondary source of information--actually, he is used this way a bit in the manga, but moreso here to keep momentum up--about the Death Note, whose rules occasionally fade onto the screen to nail down elements of its usage for viewers. It maintains the same cleverness of the manga while whittling down story elements and events to the bare necessities, condensing and re-arranging to keep the basic spirit while bringing a new dimension to Light. It's not quite as good as the series, but that's only because it doesn't have the space for endlessly intricate plotting.

    If you're reluctant to read manga or watch anime, give this flick a shot--you may well be surprised.
  • ash10692
    March 11, 2009
    ash10692
    An interesting adaptation that brings the characters from the anime to life. The story fits neatly into the two hour runtime, but at times it feels slightly held back by its low budget.
  • Gx7
    January 17, 2009
    Gx7
  • jsd35
    May 28, 2008
    jsd35
    This first movie adaptation of the famous manga is fairly lame. Poorly directed and poorly acted it has none of the tension of the anime (I have my doubts for the choice made for some of the cast too).
  • hahsyslyl
    November 6, 2009
    hahsyslyl
    The idea is fantastic and eye-catching. And the thing that is really super about Death Note is that it is not scary because of bloody guts and all that but psychological stuff. I cannot believe that Light becomes a real devil in the end since he killed his own girlfriend(he does ...( read more)not treat her as his girlfriend, anyway). All is continued in Death Note: the Last Name.
  • lockedgirl25
    October 23, 2009
    lockedgirl25
    Add a review (optional)...
  • mudbuddha
    October 14, 2009
    mudbuddha
    Another anim I love and enjoy watch and reading.
  • superspecialawesome
    October 12, 2009
    superspecialawesome
    Cool movie. Not 100% accurate compared to the graphic novels, but still pretty cool.
  • moonphaseamy14
    October 11, 2009
    moonphaseamy14
    if the anime is good the real one should too

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