Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Mirei Kiritani: Runway Beat movie review


 Year: 2011
Length: 125 minutes
Director: Kentaro Otani

Main Cast:

Mirei Kiritani as Miki Tachibana
Koji Seto as Biito "Beat" Mizorogi
Nanami Sakuraba as Mei Tsukamaoto
Imalu as Anna Akikawa
Kei Tanaka as Satoru Inuda aka Wanda
Seiichi Tanabe as Hayato Mizorogi
Erina Mizuno as Kirara Miyamato
Also check at the bottom for pics of the main cast here.

 Had wanted to watch this when it first came out but forgot all about until my recent Mirei kick and thought about it again. Mainly aimed at the teen crowd but still thought it was an enjoyable movie, even at 125 minutes it seemed to rush by fairly quickly. Bit of a simple movie and plot, one we've seen before in teen movies but all in all think if you like any of the cast you'll enjoy the film, here's a quickie review of it.



 The main story revolves around a new high school transfer student who goes by his nickname of Beat. He has been estranged from his father since his mother died many years ago but is now reunited with him though at first his father resents having him around. Hard to describe what kind of school Beat just transferred to as they seem to do zero classwork, when he first arrived at the school his new class were trying to put on a school fashion show. Reason for the fashion show was because of the ultra popular model Miki who was in their class, they all wanted to impress her with designs they created for her but all failed miserably according to her. That is until Beat arrived, his father ran a very successful modeling company and who had one time was also a very talented designer, Beat seems to have gotten that designer talent from him. Through Beat's new and different designs the class starts to pull together for the show, Miki at first was against Beat's designs and the show as she was supposed to be the #1 attraction but eventually came around, she was a bit of a bitchy character at first but was truly an okay person, lot of that bitch demeanor that she exhibited was a result of her mother.



 There's two other main characters from the class , first is Wanda who is actually a male but got the nickname for being picked on all the time. He had left school for 2 years but had recently returned yet was still picked on but thanks to Beat he transformed himself into an okay looking guy plus his designing smarts were also very important for them staging the fashion show. Also there was Mei who had met Beat at a hospital just prior to him enrolling at her school, they sort of had a mutual friend there who was sick, Next to Beat Mei is the glue which holds the group together to put on the fashion show, also along the way she really falls head over heels for Beat.
 Things are going somewhat smoothly as far as the fashion show goes for a while but like all movies in this genre many obstacles pop up. Beat's designs for the show were stolen when he posted them on the internet, he didn't even think of copyrighting them and they were stolen by a modeling company. To top it off the company was one Miki worked for and she ended up doing a photo shoot wearing the designs, not she was an outcast from the group. And to top it off the venue where the show was going to be held ended up rejecting the show, now what to do as their designs were stolen, the top model was a traitor and there was no place to hold the fashion show.



 I'm going to hopefully wrap this up quickly, don't like reading 2,500 word reviews and don't want this to be one of them. All those obstacles though eventually brought everyone closer especially Beat and his father who finally are getting along with each other, the father is even a big help in putting on the show. After they no longer had a venue to stage their show they finally thought of the obvious choice and that was to hold the show at their school. Also want to mention during those troubling times the school announced it was going to shut down at the end of the school year due to dwindling funds, the show ended up being sort of a farewell to the school.
 Many problems but of course the students grow closer and regroup to put on a very successful showa t the school, all the students ended up modeling with the star Miki of course wowing the crowd. Thus our story ends on a high note, don't know where they went to school after this one shut down or if they went to the same school after. They did all end up graduating we are shown in the final seconds of the movie and all were doing well, biggest shocker may have been that Miki and the Wand who was picked on for so long by the class ended up going out together though during the film we sort of wonder whether she has sort of a hidden crush on him.

And that's the basic gist of what happens in the movie, wasn't sure how well I would like it going in, knew it would be a bit sappy and that things would work out in the end but still thought it deserved a watch. I ended up really enjoying, bit slow in the middle but besides that the pace was fairly quick and the plot and characters were interesting. I'll give this a final rating of a 8/10, no classic but very enjoyable and if you like any of the main cast would recommend it as they all did well in the film. After this post have two more with a mega amount of screenshots from the film, here's the cast again as these screenshots ran right at the end of the film, plus after these pics check out the trailer for the film.






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