Friday, May 12, 2023

"Director's retake" of Suzume screening in Japan (8th time watching Suzume)

The "director's retake" of Suzume is being shown now in Japan. In this version, a total of 273 cuts (roughly 10% of all cuts in the movie) have been retaken in preparation for DVD/Blu-Ray sales. It started screening today in Japan and will end on 27 May 2023. In addition, postcards with a message from director Shinkai Makoto will also be handed out during this period (limited to first 400,000 viewers).

Obviously, I needed to go see what's in this retake, and get that postcard. 😉

This is the postcard, with a message printed on the reverse side. 😍

One of my goals today was to see if I could spot the differences with the original version that started screening in November last year. Well, there were a few parts which I thought were a bit different, but I just couldn't put my finger on the exact differences. They just felt, different. In the end, I don't think I can say with confidence what the differences are... 😅
 
Then, I saw on Twitter that one such change is to draw people wearing masks instead.
 
Director Shinkai Makoto explained that, at first, the production team decided to avoid drawing people wearing masks, expecting the movie to be screened after the pandemic. Suzume had been wearing a mask in the original version to hide her identity, since she had kind of ran away from home. However, this movie is very much linked to a real-world event (the earthquake 12 years ago) and so he decided to redraw in people with masks to reflect the impact of this other disaster that our world had faced and also strengthen the movie's link to the real world.

Another is the swaying of Suzume's ponytail and ribbon.
Update 13 May 2023: Another touch-up was the lighting effects.
Update 14 May 2023: The water effects were touched up, such as ripples, splashes, raindrops, and even mist under vehicles. During a Twitter Spaces event, director Shinkai Makoto also mentioned that some of the retakes were to fix small mistakes.
 
Update 20 May 2023: Serizawa's student ID was also altered to reflect the back story that director Shinkai Makoto wrote after the movie was release. (Note to self: translate that back story!) For example, Serizawa grew thinner after entering university, and dyed his hair for his part-time job. His date of birth was also changed.
Update 21 May 2023: Lighting effects were polished up to give a richer look. The tweets included some video clips to show the difference.
 
I guess with such subtle differences, it was no wonder that I couldn't really pin them down. Still, I intend to watch this retake two more times as there will be a stage event featuring director Shinkai Makoto on 21 May 2023 in Yokohama, and a final stage event with the director as well as the leading voice actors (Hara Nanoka and Matsumura Hokoto) on 27 May 2023 (this one will be live-streamed to cinemas nationwide in Japan). Maybe by then, the production team would have given more hints about the differences. 😅

Posted by Teck at 5/12/2023 07:10:00 PM

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