Trailer for "Tokyo-jima" more "Gilligan's Island" than "Lord of the Flies"

by Chris MaGee

It was in October that we reported that "All Around Us" actress Tae Kimura was going to be starring in a screen adaptation of Natsuo Kirino's 2008 Tanizaki Prize-winning novel "Tokyo Island (Tokyo-jima)". At that time I was excited because I thought that Kirino's 1997 mystery novel "Out" was a very entertaining (if grisly) read, and my love for Kimura's performance in "All Around Us" is easily one of my favorites in the past decade. How could "Tokyo-jima" go wrong?

Well, if the extended trailer for the film that that's been posted on the film's official website, and is now living over at Nippon Cinema, is any indication director Makoto Shinozaki (Okaeri, Walking with the Dog) may have very well gotten this wrong. To be absolutely fair I have to admit that I've not read Kirino's "Tokyo-jima", but with the synopsis of the book describing a 40-something year-old woman named Kiyoko surviving at all costs after being shipwrecked with 23 young men on an uninhabited island one would expect something more akin to "Lord of the Flies" than "Gilligan's Island". The humour in the trailer just seems odd given the circumstances. Again, I've not read the book, but the trailer is making me wonder if Kirino's "Tokyo-jima" will suffer the same fate as "Out" which was adapted into a deeply flawed film in 2002 by Hideyuki Hirayama.

In the end you have to be the judge as to the success or failure of this trailer for "Tokyo-jima". Head over to Nippon Cinema and give us your verdict in the comments.