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I WANT TO BE A SHELLFISH (WATASHI WA KAI NI NARITAI) – Joe Hisaishi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For all his success in the west with his scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s films – Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and the like – Joe Hisaishi’s scores for non-animated films remain strangely underappreciated by Western audiences. His latest undiscovered masterpiece is the curiously-named I Want to be a Shellfish – or ‘Watashi Wa Kai Ni Naritai’ to give it its proper Japanese title. Contrary to its absurd-sounding name, the film is a quite serious and profound drama set in post-WWII Japan, based on a famous novel by Tetsuharo Kato and directed Katsuo Fukuzawa. It tells the story of a man named Toyomatsu Shimizu (Masahiro Nakai), a quiet family man who works as a barber, who is unexpectedly arrested by the occupying American forces and tried for war crimes by a military tribunal. Read more…
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