(Jmovie Review) A Forest of Wool and Steel

Original Tile: Hitsuji to Hagane no Mori (羊と鋼の森)

Director: Kojiro Hashimoto

Writer: Natsu Miyashita (novel), Arisa Kaneko

Producer: Akihiro Yamauchi, Yusuke Ishiguro

Cinematographer: Kosuke Yamada

Release Date: June 8, 2018

 Runtime: 133 min

Genre: Drama, Music, Coming of Age

Distributor: Toho

Casts:

Kento Yamazaki as Naoki Tomura

Tomokazu Miura as Soichiro Itadori

Ryohei Suzuki as Shinji Yanagi

Mone Kamishiraishi as Kazune Sakura

Moka Kamishiraishi as Yuni Sakura

I’ve been waiting for this movie as soon as I saw the trailer. Not because I want to see The Prince of Shoujo, Kento Yamazaki, but I am curious of his improvement of his acting. I know he’s been improving, but watching the trailer, Kento with piano, it of course reminds me of his character as Arima Kousei minus his glasses in Your Lie in April. I want to see how he performs as someone unpopular and less confident. 

Naoki Tomura with his apron

Once again, Kento as Naoki Tomura is a high school student (wish it would be his last movie of him being a high schooler) who is unceritain of what he would be in the future. Until one day when he meets a piano tuner, Soichiro Itadori. Naoki who was raised in the forest could smell the breeze and the calmness of a forest. The tune of a piano being tuned really inspired him. Without his second thought, he decided of what he would be in the future, a piano tuner.

 thousands of parts you have to deal with

After studying about tuning piano for about two years, Naoki started his dream to work in musical store specializing tuning musical instruments including piano. He went back to his hometown and was hired in music store. Together with his senpai, Shinji Yanagi, Naoki started to learn how to tune customers’ piano from scratch. He realized that working as a piano tuner, he should learn not only to get to know the piano itself, but also the characters of customers. 

Sakura sisters are two of his customers who have different style of tuning. Yuni loved to have the sound produced by the piano glistening, Kazuke, on the other hand, loved the sound produced as calm and soothing. 

Kamishiraishi sisters as Sakura sisters

There are other customers who have different styles and might be difficult for Naoki who was a newbie in piano tuning. Not to mention, he didn’t hear music as much as his customers. Therefore, he needed to understand what his customers wanted: the sound should be glistening as well as calming, echoing through all the rooms, strong as well as charismatic, etc. There were times when he wanted to give up and forgot about his dream of ‘seeing the world’.

I can say that the duration is quite long that I had to pause here and there. Yet, it’s really worth your time to watch this musical movie. If you love classical music, particularly piano, I bet you’d love this 2 hour movie. The cinematography is brilliant, too, with soothing forest that would calm your eyes. I learn something new here that behind a genius pianist, there must be a competent piano tuner.

 The soothing piano

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