Deguchi no nai umi (2006)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Kiyoshi Sasabe

Writers:

Hideo Yokoyama (novel)
Yôji Yamada (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

16 September 2006 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

Koji Namiki, a talented young pitcher, who had won the National High School Baseball Championships enters university...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Ebizo Ichikawa	...	Koji Namiki
Yusuke Iseya	...	Katsuya Kita
Juri Ueno	...	Minako Narumi
Shun Shioya	...	Nobuo Ito
Teruyuki Kagawa	...	Kashima
Yûko Kotegawa	...	Mitsue Namiki
Tomokazu Miura	...	Toshiaki Namiki
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sei Hiraizumi
Hiroyuki Hirayama	...	Gouhara
Mitsunori Isaki	...	Hiroyuki Okita
Shuuji Kashiwabara	...	Yasukichi Sakuma
Yuki Kuroda	...	Satoshi Obata
Toshiyuki Nagashima	...	Baba
Tsubasa Nakamura	...	Chihara
Anna Otaka	...	Yukiyo Namiki
Yasuhito Shimao	...	Shibada
Kazuya Takahashi	...	Kenzaki
Minoru Tanaka	...	Toda

Also Known As:

Sea Without Exit (International: English title)

Runtime:

121 min | Germany:121 min (European Film Market)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Japan

Company:

Shochiku Kinema Kenkyû-jo

Midget submarines in WW2.

This one lobs about the middle of the submarine movie league table - not as good as BEDFORD INCIDENT or MORNING DEPARTURE, better than RUN SILENT RUN DEEP or GRAY LADY DOWN.

The plot shows, in not all that convincing detail, the training and deployment of Kaitan or one man human torpedoes in the later stages of WW2. Being a Japanese film gives it unfamiliarity and the cultural shadings may be lost on a Western Audience. Detail, like rising above the depth charges, is new. There's ambivalence toward the instructors, who are harsh but concerned and towards the young kamikaze operators who are not too bright but determined to show The Right Stuff.

The story line is broken by details of the lead's home life - star pitcher for the Meiji baseball team (they don't labor the irony of playing the national game of the enemy,) his resigned parents and his squeeze. Some of the imagery is striking - the farewell at the train station with with all the red dot flags - and the attempted launch does have genuine suspense, with the implications of failure explored in a detail which is the film's most interesting element.

Production is assured without being all that convincing. The underwater effects work is good.