Bloodtype Online

    This interesting little movie from Japan tells the story of a couple of actresses that are sharing an apartment.  The whole movie takes place over one evening.  The two roommates are very different.  One of them is newer to the business, is a neat freak, and is concerned about her appearance.  The other one is a veteran actress, has some guilt about her past, and is concerned that if she doesn’t get an important role soon she is finished.  Now here is the setup of the story.  The two of them are finalists for an important role in an upcoming film.  So they have to sit across from each other, trying to be polite (they are Japanese!), all the while wanting to kill each other.  Of course thru the course of the evening they both crack, which results in them actually trying to kill each other.   

    This movie is different, which of course immediately earns it some points with me.  The story is fun to watch once it gets going, but it does take a while to get started.  The script makes great use of what could of come off as a gimmick.  As the young women are talking you hear what they say to each other, as well as what they are thinking.  This makes for very clever sequence at the dinner table, and is also where the fun starts.  I was disappointed in the ending of the movie, which is predictable and ineffective.  This was most disappointing considering how well the rest of the movie was written.  There are only the two cast members, so it is up to them to carry the movie.  There are a couple of instances of overacting, but for the most part I think they both do well.   

    One of the most important aspects of this movie of course is the fight between the women.  While the movie does a good job setting up the apartment and building the tension the execution of the fight scenes are bad.  Now when there are set sequences like a head in a toilet, holding someone down while electrocuting them, or even throwing bleach on someone it is fine.  But when they are throwing each other around, or swinging swords, or punches it falls apart for me.  In fact the director falls back on the use of the shaky camera to hide how poorly these scenes work.  Maybe I have unreasonable expectations from a movie like this, but the inability to pull of fight sequences really bugged me.   

    One other thing that I wanted to mention is that this movie was part of a project where two directors where given the chance to film a movie over a week.  The movies had to have a small cast and tell the story of a conflict between two characters.  The other movie filmed is called Aragami, which is a great movie that delivers the fight sequences that this movie failed to do.   

    Bottom line with 2LDK is that it is an interesting movie with great dialogue, which fails to deliver the action that it promises.  So while there are many things to like about this movie I’d say that at best it is a rental.  

** 1/2

John "El Juan" Shatzer