'Everyone You Love Will Die'

Rating: 9/10 (28 July 2013)

..these are the words James mangold wrote on the back of the scripts for 'the wolverine'. Lofty, heavy subject matter indeed. Did he deliver on this? I Think so.
Before I review this I want to stress that before you go and watch the film, do not expect to see an x-men film, or an x-men origins: wolverine sequel. It has references to canon established no doubt but this is THE WOLVERINE, singular. Got it? right.
I was quite surprised while I was watching this film, as a big fan of Asian cinema and the neo noir stuff they've been doing in Korean cinema for a little while, I found this settle into its aesthetic quite quickly and stands up there (cinematographically, is that a word?) with some of the best. Fair enough, mangold is trying to ape what has come before but he does it with some reverence and the tone is consistent throughout. That is until the final act, which I won't spoil.
THE WOLVERINE is more a character drama, a fish out of water story but also one of healing and redemption. Logan (played by Hugh Jackman) really is the focus here and is far and away the best thing in this movie.
In one scene that takes place in a Yukon bar, it is no more evident that james mangold has delivered on the 'simmering berserker rage' aspect of the character. There is so much intensity and nuance in Jackman's performance that you actually feel the stakes, that when pushed, wolverine is not a nice guy to be around. This permeated through the entire film and made it a fairly serious piece although it has its share of laughs but just enough levity to remind you of the wolverine we all know and love.
The film seeks to answer the question of what makes an, for all intent and purposes 'immortal' want to keep going. Does that person want to keep on going? Is immortality a curse? While the exploration of this isn't as deep as you'd expect, it is handled admirable enough with Logan as the subject matter. The film also (for comic book fans) explores how wolverine is defined by the women in his life. We all know the beauty and the beast aspect to his sorry tale but what if beauty dies, must he continue to seek out more beauty to temper his soul?
This films shows enormous restraint, but is also ballsy. Don't go into it expecting just wall to wall mindless CGI action, explosion, witty one liners or cities being destroyed. It's a gritty, deeply explored character drama and what some people will call boring, I would call cultural ignorance.
While I agree Asian cinema and culture is not everyones cup of tea, you have to be able to appreciate or at least tolerate it to really understand the films finer points, the sober mood & aesthetic. A third of the film was entirely in Japanese, with a predominantly Japanese cast. In some parts they consciously did not subtitle the dialogue so that the audience were as lost in this culture as Logan was. Do the studio even want to make money from this as a summer tent-pole movie? FOX actually showed some balls taking on this flick and given their history, they can only be commended for taking this risk.
Though not as good as batman begins, that feeling you got after you finished watching it and felt they nailed the 'essence' of batman from the comics, well that's the feeling I got after watching 'The Wolverine'.
The only flaw in the film was its final act. It is jarring to say the least only because what came before was of such high quality. It is handled as well as it can be but you cant help but think the studio did not compromise completely and to appeal to the mainstream demanded a more formulaic and familiar end set piece.
Supporting characters particularly the predominantly Japanese cast (with the exception of will yun lee who is of Chinese descent) were all handled well. Will yun lee's character 'Harada' seemed like there was a lot more to him and it would have been nice if he took a more prominent role but I can see how that would have taken away from Logan's spotlight. Many props to hiroyuki sanada, his nuance and intensity was also on show here I only wish there was more of him because it was refreshing to see him as an antagonist for a change. I really liked the character yukio (another character from the comics) in this film, beyond her performance her outfit is of note as it was very well thought out to fit with the aesthetic of the film without seemign ridiculous, she was very much an anime like punk character which I think was intentional look given to her, taking her savvy streetwise backstory into consideration.
James Mangold was correct when he said this movie was a Japanese noir movie with summer tent-pole action. There was absolutely no lies told about this movie, the trailer was pretty damn honest. Well, except for the fact we have to wait for the DVD/blu ray to see extended action sequences that were alluded to in the trailers but not shown in the film (i'm looking at you ninja scene)!