NYAFF Report: ACCURACY OF DEATH aka SWEET RAIN Review

Editor, Europe; Rotterdam, The Netherlands (@ardvark23)
NYAFF Report: ACCURACY OF DEATH aka SWEET RAIN Review

Ehm... tell me if you've heard this one before: an anthropomorphic version of Death walks amongst people, with God-like knowledge and powers, but when he takes a closer interest in some of his subjects he suddenly gains new insights about what "life" and "death" mean.

There is nothing new in having death itself or one of its helpers show up as a human figure in movies, although it is slightly more original to give it the starring role. Every time it happens, though, invariably such a film will try to tell the audience that life is bittersweet yet worth living. Which, frankly, is like saying the sky is blue, the sun is hot and rain is wet. The sheer obviousness of the topic (for why else would you have Death feature as a character?) makes it a dangerous one: all too easily you get an end result which is too sentimental, too serious, or both.

Does Kakei Masaya's "Accuracy of Death" avoid this pitfall? Not entirely, as the alternate title "Sweet Rain" aptly predicts.
Is it worth watching though? Oh yes...

And the biggest reason for that is Takeshi Kaneshiro, who basically saves the movie with his performance as Chiba aka. "The Grim Reaper".

More after the break...

The Story:

Chiba is a Grim Reaper, a supernatural being who closely watches someone who is about to die in a sudden and unexpected way. No illnesses, no suicides: a Reaper's job is to decide if the upcoming appointment with death should be marked in the agenda as "proceed" or "suspend". "Suspend" means that the person will survive for now, and is only granted when a reaper gets the impression that his subject still has to reach the most important part of his/her life. But how do you put a value on what is important in someone's life, especially if you are as clueless about human behavior as Chiba is?

The film shows Chiba doing three of these assignments, each at least twenty years apart from the others. However, because Chiba's decision in the first assignment has noticeable impact on the future ones, he actually starts to learn a new thing or two about life...


The Movie:

To be blunt: this subject matter in the hands of Asians made me shudder beforehand.
Asian audiences do not necessarily share the Western love of a happy ending, but seem to thrive on melancholy. As such, this had a chance to become the most sentimental tearjerker in decades.
But thankfully it isn't: director Kakei Masaya chose to go for a quirky drama with some comedy in it, and it is a refreshing approach which successfully avoids this movie from becoming too "leaden".

Chiba is played by Takeshi Kaneshiro who clearly knocks this role out of the ballpark. His character is rather passive and should not be particularly likable, but...
Thing is, he actually IS likable, and that is directly attributable to Kaneshiro's impeccable comic timing. It's not just the funny stuff though: he also plays the Grim Reaper as both innocent and wise, and the combination is such that it's difficult to keep your eyes off of him for long. No mean feat as most of the supporting actors do good work here as well, even if some characters are somewhat lacking in depth.

Storywise the film benefits from its structure of being three episodes: each part is short enough to avoid boredom, and you keep being interested in how all this will resolve.
I was a bit disappointed in that the ending lacked a certain "ooomph", but it didn't derail the movie either. It's just that you get the impression the movie is neither as deep nor as poignant as it was meant to be.


Conclusion:

"Accuracy of Death" is by no means a masterpiece and will not floor you with new stunning insights into human nature, yet it still manages to be quite a pleasant little movie. Takeshi Kaneshiro steals the show and is worth the price of admission all by himself.

Summing this up in one word: nice.
No more, but certainly no less.

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