The Blue Light (Ao no Hono) review

It’s really weird to me that a movie starring two mega J-pop idols and one of the most popular young actresses in Japan could possibly fall out of DVD distribution for months at a time and get all but ignored in the west, but that’s exactly the case with Yukio Ninagawa’s 2003 film, The Blue Light (Ao no Hono). I always assumed this was a pretty good indication that the movie was awful, but having recently gotten my hands on a copy I now know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Based on a 2002 novel by Yusuke Kishi, The Blue Light tells the story of an intelligent 17-year-old high school student named Shuichi (Kazunari Ninomiya of Arashi) who gets frustrated when his abusive alcoholic ex-stepfather Sone (Kansai Yamamoto) moves back into his house. His mother (Kumiko Akiyoshi) doesn’t seem particularly happy with the situation either, but for some reason she continues catering to Sone’s demands of free sake and a room to sleep off his daily hangovers. After some prodding she finally breaks the news to Shuichi that his little sister Haruka (Anne Suzuki) is actually Sone’s daughter, and he is within his legal rights to take custody of her if the family doesn’t play by his rules. She explains that if they can just hold out until the spring when Haruka turns 15 she’ll be able to decide where to live for herself.

Never one to accept even temporary defeat, Shuichi starts developing a morbid plan, with the help of a few science books and his trusty library card, to secretly murder Sone while making it appear as if he died of natural causes. For most kids a thought process like this would amount to nothing more than an idle fantasy, but it quickly becomes clear that Shuichi has every intention of following through with his plan and absolutely no intention of ever being caught. From this point on the line between shattered abuse victim and arrogant sociopath becomes increasingly blurred with each of Shuichi’s actions. What started as a misguided attempt to protect his mom and little sister quickly snowballs into more deception and even another coldly-calculated murder to protect his secret.

It’s never made fully clear just how much abuse Shuichi was forced to endure as a child before his mother finally put a stop to it, but what is clear is he is now a deeply disturbed individual who’s become mildly disassociated from reality - a condition represented not-so-subtly by his secluded garage-level bedroom and the fact that he often sleeps in an empty aquarium tank. Much like Light Yagami in Death Note, Shuichi ends up treating his cover-up like a game and underestimates the intelligence of the people he’s trying to fool. Even his precocious love interest Noriko (Aya Matsuura) can tell he’s been up to no good, so it’s only a matter of time before the dumb-like-a-fox local detective puts all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Fascinating and engrossing, The Blue Light may occasionally get overlooked because it came out on the tail end of a “it’s tough being a kid” trend in Japanese cinema. And while films like Eureka and Harmful Insect pulled it off much more artfully, that doesn’t mean The Blue Light isn’t a great movie in its own right. Ninomiya really establishes himself as a completely natural young actor by turning in a flawless performance, and Anne Suzuki is good as always. If I had to point to one disappointment, it would be the lackluster performance of Aya Matsuura (begrudgingly - believe me). For someone so naturally talented she comes off incredibly boring and out of place in this film. However, she’s been in a few more things since then and gets better with each performance so I think she deserves a mulligan. One deer-in-headlights performance aside, The Blue Light is a really good movie that deserves more distribution than it gets and it’s definitely worth checking out if you ever get the chance.

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Availability: Unfortunately "The Blue Light" seems to have dropped completely out of distribution as of this review and is not available at any major online retailers, with or without English subtitles.

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