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Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara, Kengo Kora, Reika Kirishima ... see more see more... , Eriko Hatsune , Tetsuji Tamayama

Tokyo, the late 1960s...Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment and Toru Watanabe's personal life is similarly in tumult. At heart, he is deeply devoted to his first love,... read more read more... Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their complex bond has been forged by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Watanabe lives with the influence of death everywhere. That is, until Midori, a girl who is everything that Naoko is not - outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident - marches into his life and Watanabe must choose between his past and his future. -- (C) Official Site

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52% liked it

4,613 ratings

Critics

74% liked it

58 critics

Unrated, 2 hr. 13 min.

Directed by: Anh Hung Tran, No Zin Soo

Release Date: January 6, 2012

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DVD Release Date: May 15, 2012

Stats: 370 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (370)

  • LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    August 8, 2011
    LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    "The grief over a death of someone you loved can never be healed. We can only live with the sorrow and learn something out of it."

    Upon hearing the song "Norwegian Wood," Toru (Matsuyama) remembers back to his life in the 1960s, when his friend Kizuki killed himself and h... read moree grew close to Naoko, Kizuki's girlfriend. As the two try, in very different ways, to contend with their grief, Toru forms a bond with another woman, Midori.

    REVIEW

    Its hard to review a film like this when you've been looking forward to it so much. While its not my favorite of his books, I'm a big Haruki Murakami fan, and I love Anh Hung Tran's earlier films - I thought this was potentially a match made in heaven.

    The film is good - very good. Just not the great film I'd hoped it would be. There are wonderful scenes and great acting, and the cinematography is beautiful. But I think there are some major flaws. The flow of the film is oddly disjointed at times - while the book is very much written from the perspective of an older, wiser man looking back at his immature youth, the film seems unsure of its own perspective. The voice-over is poorly structured, seemingly aimed at filling in narrative gaps rather than giving us the older narrators overview. Oddly for Tran, a director who has been extremely minimalist in the past, some scenes are far too overwrought, not helped by the intrusive and anachronistic score. The casting is also uneven - Rinko Kikuchi is a marvelous actress, but is simply too old to play a convincing 20 year old. The character of Reiko is also played by an actress much younger than the character in the book, but the part hasn't been changed accordingly. That said, Kenichi Matsuyama as Toru and in particular Kiko Mizuhara as Midori are terrific.

    I really don't know how someone who doesn't know the book will react to this. I suspect that if you are a romantic at heart, you will like it, even if you find it a bit overlong and some of the characters too thinly drawn. Fans of the book will mostly love it as it is quite faithful (maybe too faithful) to the story.
  • 5oclockcoffee
    May 1, 2011
    5oclockcoffee


    I´ve never seen such a terrible and painful adaptation like this Norwegian Wood. Haruki Murakami´s novel, even if full of literary references, is still an easy or accessible book what, I knew, could be used for the best or for the worst. The thing is that what I expe... read morected of worst was a sort of pretentious indie film and not that Anh Hung Tran would kill the main points and characteristics of the story to transform it in a beautiful and acceptable garbage. Who claims that the film is faithful to the novel, probably have not read it, unless the English translation is really that different from the original in Japanese.*

    If you haven´t read Murakami´s novel, you can like this film. If you did, you´ll feel like killing youself and right in the first scenes. Nagazawa would never, never, say that "Life is short. There's no sense in wasting time on books in a sense of time is absent."

    When I did finally meet the one person in my world who had read Gatsby, he and I became friends because of it. His name was Nagasawa. (...) He was a far more voracious reader than me, but he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years.
    "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said. "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short."
    "What kind of authors do you like?" I asked, speaking in respectful tones to this man two years my senior.
    "Balzac, Dante, Joseph Conrad, Dickens," he answered without hesitation.

    How to take it serious and keep watching a film that visibly pretends nothing but please the mass? Perhaps, everything is allowed in an adaptation, but to completely change the story is going too far. Nagazawa is only one of the many faults. Naoko and Midori are played by very beautiful girls, but Midori is too far away of the "complexity" of her character. The fact that she is always smiling when Naoko has her dark moments doesn´t say anything at all. Simplistic justifications, simplistic and naïve love stories when Toru´s relationship with both Naoko and Midori and even with life itself was much more complex. Oh, and I will not even mention Reiko that simple and totally loses all her importance here.


    Shallow chords and a trivial course.




    *I just got a PDF copy of the English translation and now I can say with conviction that no, it´s not that different from the one I read. Those who think that the film is faithful to the book, or did not read it or really don´t have any sense of anything.

    ** The Beatle´s Norwegian Wood was Naoko´s favorite song that Reiko only played when she asked her to because the song put Naoko very sad.
  • Saxia
    January 27, 2011
    Saxia
    For those who don't know, this movie is an adaptation of the book by Haruki Murakami. Since I'm a big fan of his work, I had to see this of course.

    The atmosphere and the dialogues were very Murakamiesque :p The start of the movie was a little artificial (for lack of a better wo... read morerd), and it couldn't really shake that of as the movie progressed. This in contrast to the beautiful shots of the landscape, and the awesome 70's interior (I love that shit). It's strength was in the quiet scenes.

    I'll try to explain it. Murakami has a the talent to make very peculiar events and people to come off very natural and matter-of-factual, it's almost impossible to translate that to the screen. Some dialogues and scenes were so blunt and explicit that it became awkward, awkward in a sense that it was almost funny, and that wasn't the intended effect.

    I'm not quite sure if it was due to bad acting or directing, but I have to complement the effort. Personally I think the movie Tony Takitani is still the best adaptation (of one of his short stories) so far.

    3,5 stars is not to bad, but I expected more of it.
  • panta2
    February 18, 2012
    panta2
    This movie will divide the audience with its slow pace and dreamy, protracted love scenes and especially purposely created imbalance between the main characters. But, I'll suggest to be patient, and that patience will be rewarded with almost forgotten doomy romanticism which is ... read morereflected in attenuated, beautifully photographed scenes of tragic ending love lives.

    Main character Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), an earnest and somehow naïve Japanese college student, and Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), the onetime sweetheart of his best friend, Kizuki, who committed suicide, are meeting after seven years... they celebrate Naoko's 20th birthday, and her loss of virginity is an event deepened by their shared but unspoken grief. Everything seems fine after that until Watanabe brings up Kizuki's name for the first time, and Naoko collapses in tears and confesses that her sexual unresponsiveness to Kizuki, whom she had known since childhood, was a source of anguish. She appears to blame herself for his suicide... and is solemnly fixated on the obsessional, morbid aspects of her youthful passion.

    Written and directed by Tran Anh Hung ("Cyclo," "The Scent of Green Papaya"), this is an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's novel and in this movie, like in the novel, the story is narrated by Watanabe, who looks back 17 years to his days as a college freshman. I have to say that the loose narrative structure of a dreamy and poetic personal journal that is more a series of reflections than a cohesive story, gives the director freedom of expression but sometimes is without the structure and vanishes in the mood of seething emotional turmoil... OK - it's not a perfect movie, but very enjoyable and different from most of the movies you'll see this year... spare over 2 hours to watch this tragedy of love!
  • chihoe
    July 14, 2011
    chihoe
    To catch only occasional brilliance in this film adaptation of one of my favourite Haruki Murakami novels is undoubtedly disappointing. It is by no means the fault of the cast, who adeptly impersonates their characters and displays the heavy-hearted emotions; rather, the film's e... read morediting lacked focus and flow. Director Anh Hung Tran use of wide, panning shots of beautiful imagery is visually stimulating yet there is a disconnection between these scenes. Still, "Norwegian Wood"'s lessons on love, responsibility, life and death, deserves a chance, even a second one when the right time comes along.
  • fb1245361650
    November 12, 2011
    fb1245361650
    A harrowing loss begins this epic tale of harrowing redemption. Toru's (Ken'ichi Matsuyama's) friend Naoko (played pitch-perfectly by Rinko Kikuchi) seems lost after her best friend's suicide, and it forces Toru (called by his last name throughout the film) to become a young adul... read moret in a microcosm of strange and contrasting ideas about sex and love. The film isn't trying to be quick or quickly explained. Take it on its own meditative terms, and it becomes a beautiful portrait of being a young adult and falling in love during difficult times. Powerful, deep, but light and funny enough to keep a smile on your face. Personally, this is my favorite film of 2011 so far. I LOVE THIS FILM!!!
  • lesleyanorton
    August 21, 2011
    lesleyanorton
    Loved the book, hated this film. I'll have to stick to TONY TAKITANI for my Murakami film fix.

  • mvieaddict
    February 1, 2012
    mvieaddict
    Based on the novel Norwegian Wood, by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung directed this story to the big screen with Kenichi Matsuyama and Rinko Kikuchi ( Babel) in lead roles.But somehow this failed and turned into a typical story of a love triangl... read moree, loss and sexuality without much emotional depth. Set in the late 1960s in Japan during the student turmoils, this story focused more on Watanabe (Matsumaya) and the women in his life. Hung's direction was very much in keeping his visual style, with attention on the natural world. However the story required some time to develop and even though director Hung had accomplished for the best cinematographic surroundings which could be framed as a work of art, the film itself lacked in storyline,Norwegian Wood was a great looking film but not well written or acted, and since it was so slow paced I don't think it will be for general audiences who had not read the book.
  • MOVEECRITIC
    January 4, 2012
    MOVEECRITIC
    "Norwegian Wood" is based on Haruki Murakami's 1987 worldwide best-seller which ought to persuade various audiences to give this lengthy, sophisticatedly directed Japanese film a go. Nevertheless, not all viewers will have the patience to allow themselves be entangled in this exc... read moreellent cinematography by Mark Lee Ping Bin of young love, sex and the emotional passage of an attractive dramatis personae.
  • natureandgrace67
    November 12, 2011
    natureandgrace67
    A harrowing loss begins this epic tale of harrowing redemption. Toru's (Ken'ichi Matsuyama's) friend Naoko (played pitch-perfectly by Rinko Kikuchi) seems lost after her best friend's suicide, and it forces Toru (called by his last name throughout the film) to become a young adul... read moret in a microcosm of strange and contrasting ideas about sex and love. The film isn't trying to be quick or quickly explained. Take it on its own meditative terms, and it becomes a beautiful portrait of being a young adult and falling in love during difficult times. Powerful, deep, but light and funny enough to keep a smile on your face. Personally, this is my favorite film of 2011 so far. I LOVE THIS FILM!!!

View All Norwegian Wood Reviews

Critic Reviews

Richard Nilsen
March 15, 2012
Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic

We cover years at a bound, but when we light, we tend to spend long, lingering moments through the camera's loving eye. This is a beautiful film to see. Full Review

Rick Groen
March 2, 2012
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

Tran has drained the life right out of the novel. Full Review

Bruce Demara
March 1, 2012
Bruce Demara, Toronto Star

It becomes a film that, like its characters, remains elusive in its motivations and therefore detached from its audience. Full Review

G. Allen Johnson
February 2, 2012
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

A master of mood and visuals, Tran proves an inspired choice. Full Review

Roger Ebert
January 19, 2012
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It's sweet all the way up, wavers in dread and slides down to doom. Full Review

Lisa Schwarzbaum
January 12, 2012
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

This lush, eventually torpid adaptation of Haruki Murakami's more nuanced 1987 cult-favorite novel considers youthful love, loss, and eros... Full Review

Andrew O'Hehir
January 6, 2012
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

Maybe this was the project Tran has been waiting for. I rate this the best film of his non-prolific career by far. Full Review

Stephanie Merry
January 6, 2012
Stephanie Merry, Washington Post

"Norwegian Wood" is a restrained portrait of liminal moments, a coming-of-age tale that feels more like a moody ghost story than a neatly contained chronicle of beginnings. Full Review

Kyle Smith
January 6, 2012
Kyle Smith, New York Post

Even for a film set in a land that considers paper folding an exciting activity, this is dull stuff. Full Review

Stephen Whitty
January 6, 2012
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

The gently diffuse light and color and the compositions by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin, create a delicate, almost watercolored world, fading like a memory. Full Review

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