Moon Child

Moon Child is a Japanese movie about a vampire and his life around a human child. It is directed by Takahisa Zeze. I’m not too eager about vampire movie, the cast is the main reason I want to watch this movie badly. The main casts are Hyde, Gackt and Wang Lee Hom. Hyde is the vocalist of my number one band L’Arc~en~Ciel. Moon Child is his first movie debut, it was shot during L’Arc~en~Ciel’s first long break. When I first heard that Hyde is going to play in a movie, I was so exited…whether his acting is good or not, I HAVE to watch it.

It’s been years since I last watched this movie, I watched it few months after its official released in Japan, April 19, 2003. I had to wait for few months because the DVD came out months after the movie was released, I wish I could see it in theater…unfortunately Japanese movie was not a common movie in Indonesian Theater. I remember watching this movie few years after that. Two days ago, I finally watched it for the 3rd time, I missed this movie a lot. Well actually, I missed Kei a lot.

Now, let’s talk about the movie 🙂

The story began in year 2000 and ended in 2045. The prologue of the movie showed 2 men running away after killing someone. Luka, the older man, said that he had enough, he wanted to be over. They went to the beach and Luka let himself burn under the sun. The younger man, Kei, watched his friend died in front of him. Both Luka and Kei were vampires.

14 years later, Japan suffered a major economic collapse, a lot of Japanese emigrated to another country. In Mallepa – China, 3 little boys, Shinji, Sho (Shinji’s little brother) and Toshi were trying to life on their own by stealing from other people. On one of their jobs, while running away from the man they’ve stolen, Sho met an unusual person who easily got burn when the sunlight hit his hand. Sho carried him back to their hiding place. That person was Kei. It was the beginning of their long friendship.

25 years later, Kei (Hyde), Sho (Gackt) and Toshi (Taro Yamamoto) were still together. They were still living in the dark side of the town. They were trying to provide their life by becoming robbers. It was really fun to see how Sho tried to avoid bullets with Kei’s help. Kei could keep his life by feeding on the man they had robbed. They only robbed gang members.

On one of their mission, their plan was ruined by a man named Son (Wang Lee Hom). Son came barging to the same place they were going to rob because those gang members had raped his sister, Yi-che. The incident brought them together, Kei’s family became bigger then before. The 5 of them had lots of fun together. Sho liked Yi-che, but we can see clearly that Yi-che liked Kei. This love triangle is not the main focus of this movie.

Things turned bad when Toshi was killed by another member of the gang they had robbed, at the same time, Yi-che and Son found out the truth about Kei. They went separate ways after that day.

9 years later, Sho had become a leader of his own gang and Son had joined the man who had killed Toshi. Things turned from bad to worse.

That is all I can say about the story, I have already written more spoiler than I have planned before. For me, Moon Child is more like Hong Kong type of movie rather than Japanese type of movie. There were a lot of gunshot and gang member. The action also felt like Hong Kong action movie.

My honest judgment on the movie is that the movie has lots of holes but the story is quite good. There were parts where I felt like the scenes were so made up, like how come there’s no police every time there’s a gun fight happened? And how come there’s moment where Kei seemed to look fine under the sun? And how could Kei despise himself for killing people for him to feed but it was okay for him to see Sho killing people for money? And many other moments where I felt like something are missing there.

But…looking pass beyond those missing things, the main idea of the story is actually quite good. It talks more about friendship through time. I really like how the whole vampire thing is not the main focus of the story even though the title is Moon Child. Kei was portrayed as a monster who despised himself, he hated the fact that in order for him to life, he had to kill other people. Sho accepted Kei for whoever he is. I love seeing how Kei looks after Sho and how Sho tries to accompany Kei all the time. The action is okay, my favorite scene is when Kei, Sho and Son point their guns at each other…the kind of coolness you can only see in Hong Kong movies.

Talking about the actors, I have no comment for Wang Lee Hom because he was okay. I like to focus more on Hyde and Gackt. Both Hyde and Gackt are musicians, Moon Child is their 1st debut as an actor. I honestly think that my Hyde is going to be sucks in acting…thank God I was wrong. I’m not going to say that he is a great actor, but he isn’t as bad as I expected. He is quite good. There are moments where I feel that he is a bit off but there are also moments where he is really good. He looks really Kakkoi, the way he stands and acts is not much of an act because that’s how he looks like every time I see him in concerts or TV Shows. What can I say? Hyde is a very Kakkoi man. Gackt is a better actor than Hyde, his Cantonese sounds better than Hyde. His expression is also better than Hyde (sorry Hyde-sama, but it’s the truth!!!). As a singer, I don’t really like Gackt, I like his music but not him as a person, but I have to admit the fact that he plays better than Hyde. However, the cast is already perfect, Hyde is perfect as a vampire with heart and Gackt is perfect as a man with Sho’s personality.

Hyde’s second movie is Kagen no Tsuki (I’ll write my review next month), this one is much better than Moon Child. Although Hyde is not a great actor, I really like seeing him in a movie. Why hasn’t he played in a movie again?

Haido-chan, please play in a movie again…of course as long as it doesn’t disturb L’Arc~en~Ciel’s schedule 🙂

Rating:  (because Hyde is in  this movie, if Hyde is not the actor, I’d give  which mean something I would not more than once)

I’m sharing this movie for my R.I.P. Challenge V – Perils on Screen and Hello Japan! Mini Challenge: Japan Spooky.