Beck: Movie Review

I cannot contain my excitement now. The atmosphere, the crowd and their expression, the lighting and most of all the music… totally overwhelmed me. ‘Beck’ the movie is amazing. Sure there are shortcomings here and there, like the rushed feeling of the movie or the awkward choice of actors for minor roles. But ‘Beck’ the movie hit several spots right – with the right main actors. 

The roles of Taira, Ryuusuke, Saku and Maho were well cast. Their acting was pretty decent. I am amazed by the resemblance between the manga/anime Koyuki and Takeru Satoh, the actor who played him. The eyes and facial expression were almost alike, except maybe Takeru Satoh was a little too skinny. In my opinion, the star who truly shined was Kiritani Kenta who played Chiba. Having watched the anime and read the manga, Chiba wasn’t really my favourite character. But in the movie, Kiritani Kenta totally became Chiba and he brought out Chiba’s boundless energy.

The music shines. As usual, Beck’s songs are really good – which is hard to compose, I bet. But composing Belle Ame’s nauseatingly horrible music? That is definitely harder to do! Anyways, the music – both the distasteful and the awesome – is done well. Lastly, I was a tad disappointed when Koyuki’s voice was muted out in the actual movie. WHY? But having finally watched their Greatful Sound performance, I appreciated the fact that their music was beautiful enough even without vocals. That, maybe the viewers are supposed to imagine Koyuki’s voice in their heads to bring out the ultimate movie experience, is what the director has in mind? And how right I was when I heard the actual version of the song, in which Koyuki’s voice is not muted. Takeru Satoh’s voice falls short of expectation. In a hindsight, I should have resisted wanting to listen to ‘Koyuki’s voice’ because I feel so disappointed right now.

All in all, I rate this movie 8 out of 10. It has been an enjoyable ride for me, because this adaptation stays true to the manga.