Deathnote Spin-off: L Change the World

I finally watched a second movie that managed to make me cry.

Not as much as the first movie that made me cry, though.

The first is A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, as some of you might already know.

Argh. Just remembered that I had promised #1 to write a review of A.I. since last year! :( I will...see how, okay? =P

As the title implies, that is the movie that I had watched yesterday. Haha. I'm writing this assuming that you have some basic knowledge of the characters. Haha.

The movie doesn't have many links to deathnote, but concentrates more on L's final 23 days on Earth after he decides his own fate in the deathnote book in a bid to outwit Kira. That's because, in the second movie, it did not mention anything about his final 23 days. Ever wondered what L had been up to? Haha. This movie, which is the third one, tells all.

And so will I, in my way. As usual. Haha.

As the movie progresses, we are constantly reminded of the number of days L has on Earth by these white subtitles that go: X Days Left, in Japanese and English.

I don't remember how the movie started. (Honestly! Because it didn't make sense to me at the time) Even tossing and turning around in my bed this morning in an effort to recall didn't help. So I went to search for the movie's webpage, and was brought to a Japanese one. -_-

I mean, duh, it's a Japanese movie. Haha. But I finally chanced upon Wikipedia, which I should have searched earlier, and found that the movie had started off with a woman, who is apparently from the FBI, walking on a dimly-lit street, and, later, disappearing into a barn, where gunshots are heard. She later steps out, winks at the camera in her car and returns to the car.

L is the person communicating with her.

Later, we see a recap of how he wrote his name in the Deathnote to die quietly of a heart attack, then burning up the two deathnote books that he had, and Watari bringing Misa into the room and dying of a heart attack.

Then the camera skips to a Thai village, which left me hanging for a long while. I was wondering very much what the link between the two was, until very much later when I realised that the main aim of the movie was about how L was trying to save the world from a terrible bioterrorism act.

That snapped me out of watching out for another Deathnote book. =P

Back to the Thai village.

There were many people clad in yellow suits that sealed up their heads and bodies who were heading towards the village in vehicles. When they reached, they got off and for a (long) moment, I thought they were voluntary rescue workers from the UN and that got my mind wondering if I am as noble as to look at all these battered people and administer first aid, etc, to them.

It was much later, when I saw how some of these "yellow people" (as I shall address them, out of convenience) roughly treated those villagers, who were obviously sick and dying of some epidemic, and this guy dressed in blue who saw everything and ran all the way back to somewhere in the wilderness to a little boy and saying to him, "This village is ruined. We have to go," that I realised that the "yellow people" are bad people.

Apparently, these yellow people were sent to extract blood samples from these villagers, who were infected by some very deadly epidemic, so as to examine it to figure out an antidote for it for some people high up there to conduct some acts of terrorism.

Guess what? The US seemed to be working in conjunction with the Japanese Dr Kujo and another guy who had an insatiable greed for money in this project.

Haha. What a convenient country to bring in. =P No offence!

I'm not going to narrate the whole story. That would be boring. I mean, it's so much better to watch...

Back to the boy, the blue guy's name is F. He sacrificed himself by being a decoy after the yellow people's forces bombed the village, and after he gave the boy instructions on how to contact Watari.

Apparently, F had been working undercover in the village, and had contracted the epidemic himself. Seems like that was actually an experiment on the bioterrorism act. I think those people had wanted to test out the virus they were going to use.

OMG. So cruel. :(

The boy, strangely, did not contract this disease, and after he was accepted by L, he was screened for traces of the virus and was certified OK.

The part that got me sad and crying was when this professor, who was working on an antidote for this virus (because he thought that the US, which had sent this over, had wanted to find out more about it so as to prevent bioterrorism), killed himself with the virus because his partner, Dr Kujo, was in cahoots with that big bad blind-in-one-eye guy who had found them a buyer for the virus and the antidote and was using him all the while. Plus, the sadistic gang had threatened to get his daughter as a hostage to threaten him to hand over the virus and the antidote that he had just successfully created.

The scene in which he died that very painful death (can you imagine growing blister-like stuff all over you which burst and bleed when they grow big enough, and bleeding everywhere, as well as choking?) and asked Dr Kujo to destroy the room [by some kind of electricity thing] in which he was in because the virus eats through the glass was very touching, albeit the last part where he reached for the glass pane one last time, with his entire body blackened was a little unwanted and elicited some laughter from others.

He had sacrificed himself not only for Mankind, but also for his daughter (who is, incidentally, a school-age girl). What a noble man! I cried because he looked a little like my own Daddy, especially since he just cut his hair. I don't know if Daddy would die for Mankind, but he certainly would do so for me. Bleah, I just cried along with that very strong little girl as she ran to the shelter of L, on her father's orders.

Now for a more summarised version. The girl, Maki, injects herself with the remaining virus that her father had asked her to bring to L, in a bid to infect Dr Kujo and her team. But it remains dormant in her as she has low blood sugar.

L saves her from Dr K and team, and brings the boy and her to another professor, who was the co-writer with her father of a research paper on that particular virus strain. There, they plead with him to develop an antidote for the virus as soon as possible.

Maki stupidly returns to Dr K to seek revenge, and fails, of course. Later, Dr K uses her to deceive the rest of her team that she has gotten the recipe to the antidote (which Maki's father did leave to her, in the form of a code. It's a mathematical puzzle, which was solved by the boy, who is a mathematical genius. But Maki didn't tell Dr K anything about that, of course), and brings them on a plane to the US, and has plans to hijack it using the virus.

Later, L rushes to save Maki, and causes the plane to not be able to take off on schedule, so Dr K changes tact and pulls out Maki's patient devices (i.e. erm , I forgot the name. The IV bag and needle thing, I THINK) roughly, causing her to bleed and spread the virus.

Dr K's plan is actually to cleanse the world of human beings who ruin the Earth, and that blind-in-one-eye guy just wants money. But can you imagine how someone would want to cleanse the Earth so badly that she just adapts herself to this lousy plan?

Just another point to add though. Here, like Kira, Dr K seems to think of herself as God. Human beings thinking of themselves as God never fails to bring problems. Look at the Saw movie series. Deathnote I and II also showcased this, with its Kira (Light Yagami) as the lead. How about Bruce Almighty and Click, which showed a little of this through the guy who wanted to control time?

I can't think of any more examples for now, but I hope you've gotten my point already. Haha. That is, no matter what, we as flawed human beings are in no position to pass judgement on others.

Back to my story.

The whole plane of people becomes infected, and L finally manages to save everyone with the tonnes of antidote that Maki's father's colleague had developed. Ever wondered how come L didn't get infected? That's because he had chosen to die quietly of a heart attack, in the deathnote book. Haha.

The boy is named Near by L, as L wants him to always be near when someone is saved. Something like that.

There we get how Near came about. Haha.

And L. Lawliet (that's his real name!) dies quietly of a heart attack in his house, as he had chosen for himself in the Deathnote.

The plot is not good in its coherence, but I suppose the good acting is a redeeming factor. It also had some funny parts like how L tried to babysit the two children, and how he bullied the FBI agent who was so willing to help him into becoming a decoy. And the fact that it touched me enough to make me cry...