All that Jazz
Why isn’t Hiromi Uehara’s name above the title of Yuzuru Tachikawa’s adaptation of Shinichi Ishizuka’s music manga?
Blue Giant
Director: Yuzuru Tachikawa • Writer: Number 8, based on the manga by Shinichi Ishizuka
Starring: Yuki Yamada, Shotaro Mamiya, Amane Okayama
Japan • 2hrs
Opens Hong Kong August 31 • IIA
Grade: B
Blue Giant is a lot of jazz. Like, really a lot. It cannot be stressed enough that if sax noodling and extended hi-hat tapping grates on your nerves, this is not the movie for you. But if it is, or you’re just into good music, come on in. Veteran television director and storyboard artist Yuzuru Tachikawa (Attack on Titan, Death Parade, Mob Psycho 100) finally branched out into film with an entry in the Detective Conan family series back in 2018, but his animated adaptation of Shinichi Ishizuka’s popular music manga is far more adult than almost all of his previous work. This despite the fact it’s clearly suffering low budget-itis.
It’s a tale as old as time. Eighteen-year-old Dai Miyamoto (voiced by Yuki Yamada) leaves his provincial Sendai home and, like Nomi Malone in Showgirls, heads for the bright lights of the big city, Tokyo, to fulfil his quest to become a jazz superstar. Of course, he’s broke, so he crashes with a friend, Tamada (Amane Okayama), ostensibly a university student from back home. When Dai isn’t doing odd jobs or practising his sax skills by the bay, he’s soaking up jazz at the best clubs, planning on one day being on their stages. When he meets piano savant Sawabe (Shotaro Mamiya), who he brashly approaches demanding they jam, he seems on the road to renown. Recognising Dai’s raw talent, Sawabe agrees to form a trio, which Dai ropes Tamada into, even though he can’t play drums. The dub themselves Jass, and what follows is a rote music saga: struggle, breakthrough, rise, argument, fall, tragedy, rebirth, fame. We know this because of that laziest of storytelling devices – the interview. Someone (who is never clear) is making a doc about Dai Miyamoto’s brilliant career.
Play something, please
Blue Giant is something of a split personality artistically. The animation, normally a high point, toggles back and forth between immersive and shimmery and kindergarten-level stick figure drawings (exaggerating to make a point). When the almost impressionistic (and motion capture) 2D drawings take centre stage, some genuinely striking images immerse us in Jass’s performance, and each of the solos. Now, some of the 2D is clunky AF too, but the “cheap” CG used for audiences and wide shots on stages and such is worse. I get it. IRL actors that don’t really play an instrument are hard to shoot around, so animating fingers tickling the ivories is probably a hideous task. But surely high level professional artists can render something slightly more believable and less muddy? It doesn’t help that the Dai, Sawabe and Tamada’s back stories are so thin as to be practically non-existent. What’s there is cliché, and what’s hinted at could have been fleshed out considerably. Swap out some of the repetitive battle of the bands style learning curve for Jass and you’ve got three guys to root for more. And maybe, just maybe, we’d learn a thing or two about what makes jazz aficionados such devotees to the form.
None of which really matters because notoriously off-the-wall composer and pianist Hiromi Uehara is here to do the heavy lifting. Uehara is widely known for her energetic live performances and aggressive hairstyles and was the ideal choice for Blue Giant. As noted, this movie is a lot of jazz, but Uehara’s habitual dabbling in post-Ragtime stride, classical, pop, prog-rock and blues (among others) steals the show. Title track “BLUE GIANT” and what becomes Jass’s signature song, “N.E.W”, are just a couple in a deep, deep bench of spotlight pieces and ambient connective tissue that tells the story as much as the artwork does. It’s the type of jazz non-believers and connoisseurs alike can groove to, perhaps more than even Jon Batiste’s Oscar-winning contributions to Soul in 2020. In fairness, it’s to be expected; what’s a music movie with crap music? It’s worth the price of admission if only to hear Blue Giant in surround sound. Because that soundtrack? A+. — DEK