Two of the entries for this year's Eiga Sai are sequels or subsequent parts to multi-part movie series. For the next two entries about this year's Eiga Sai, we'll be talking about the installment that made it to the festival and any prequels the movie may have. In this case, Thermae Romae II is the film being shown right now at the festival.
The Japanese have a very unique culture with respect to taking baths. Communal baths and hot spring onsen are strewn about the country. There is also no contemporary culture quite as obsessed with comfort in the bathroom, in spirit with the Japanese concept of benri - convenience.
Mari Yamazaki's Thermae Romae manga is set in another civilization with a communal bath culture - Ancient Rome - where baths were a major part of their society. Lucius, an architect of baths, is tasked with making new innovations in Roman bath establishments. In his desperation, he is suddenly transported to modern day Japan, where he uses his experience with a different, yet advanced, bathing culture to supplement his own.
The 2012 live action adaptation of Thermae Romae follows the manga's storyline and adds its own personal touch, creating an honestly funny piece of film that celebrates the bathing cultures of these two civilizations. There is no shortage of weird, quirky gags that add to the film's charm - there are toys flushed down toilets, giant golden penises, and bidet-induced euphoria. A large influence in the movie's quirky style is director Hideki Takeuchi, who is no stranger to manga adaptations. Among his most well known projects are the rambunctiously hilarious live action TV and movie adaptations of Nodame Cantabile, collectively, a rare body of work that does justice to the source material, and is, in my opinion, better than the subsequent anime adaptation.
While the movie follows the manga's episodic structure for most of the first half, where Lucius has a bathing related problem and solves it thanks to seeing some Japanese innovation, the second half focuses on a longer arc which concerns the future heir to the Roman Empire (also, baths.) Thanks to the split, the movie is paced just right and never drags.
Some characters are also added for drama's sake. The character of Mami in the manga is expanded as a potential love interest for Lucius and as our window into Ancient Rome, roles that were either shared among different characters in the manga or were otherwise non-existent. Most memorable are a gang of Ojii-san that help Mami and Lucius in the art of bathhouse-making. Acting wise, the cast delivers quite nicely, and fans of Hiroshi Abe will have a treat seeing their favorite star in the buff for a large chunk of the movie.
Thermae Romae captures the setting of Ancient Rome with impressive production design and extensive casting of foreign actors and extras, while on the Japanese side of things, the movie lovingly features a string of baths and onsen that I personally would like to visit one day.
It's a fine adaptation, and as a standalone movie it's quite hilarious. It went on to success in its home country, being one of the top grossing films of that year.
With that success, a movie sequel was all but obvious. There was one problem, however, and it kind of shows in Thermae Romae II - the ending of the first film was conclusive, almost final. A sequel story-wise was not really necessary. To make a sequel, one would have to untie loose ends previously tied up at the end of the first film, without wholly compromising its premise. Did it work? The result is kind of a mixed (yet still entertaining) bag.
Thermae Romae II features Lucius tackling yet another problem in his home country of Rome. While he averted a crisis in the first film, the Roman Senate is still at odds with Emperor Hadrian, seeking to undermine his authority to push an expansionist policy that will not do the empire any good.
How does Lucius solve this problem? By making bathhouses, of course, mostly in the fashion established by the first film. And so we have a rehash of the episodic concept seen in the first half of the first film, using other scenes taken from the manga (as well as a number of original ones.) The movie doesn't bring anything fresh to the table, which may not be a good thing for people who've seen the first film and want something else. For people seeing this movie without seeing the previous one, it will probably not be that big of a problem. The plot then switches into a longer arc involving a semi-revolt and general chaos in the empire until Lucius comes to save the day (with the help of some hefty friends.)
Some things and people that were introduced in the first film, such as the requirements for returning to one's time, and various supporting characters, appear without warning and may seem confusing to first time viewers, but the movie helps you along these plot lines such that you don't have to have seen the first film to appreciate this one. The jokes are still quite funny, and the movie is still entertaining. As a standalone movie this is still a really fun flick and a good, though not as faithful, manga adaptation. In the context of the film series, however, it's an okay sequel that is basically more of the same.
Eiga Sai runs from July 9 to 19 in primarily at Edsa Shangri-la and at later dates in other theaters in Davao, Cebu and the UP Campus.
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