A lot of the detail that's in the book is missing in this movie. You're better to read the book.

I don't know that everyone will "get it". Young people are stupid and act on impulse because they are immature. What you do affects people you love, and people you don't even know. This is a "growing up" movie. It deals with suicide, which will put people off. It also deals with casual sex and its effects, and most importantly, love.

I had high hopes for this film.

This is, in a way, a pretty frank film about sex, well, adolescents talking about it, moreso than lots of explicit sex scenes but I wouldn't say this is the most comfortable film to watch in front of your parents, put it that way!. It features some nice cinematography, scenic shots in rural and costal areas, which I liked. The dialogue shows how curious and perhaps naive the main female character (Naoko) is, which perhaps tells you all you need to know. There is something a bit touching about it, in a good way but it didn't entirely sit well with me overall, due to the bleaker elements present in the plot I suppose. I think its made clear that the female character has more to lose from investing in her relationship. I assume the presence of snow in some scenes is meant to symbolise the characters innocence/youth/purity(?). I appreciate that the narration is off hand written letters, so thoughts and emotions are laid bare. I also thought the musical score was quite good towards the end - its somewhat evocative. Some scenes feature little in the way of dialogue - the dialogue being quite sparse but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I wasn't so keen on this film overall - it does a decent job at highlighting some cultural issues perhaps but its not one of my favourite Japanese films, though its still a reasonable film, for what it is. I imagine an adolescent audience may enjoy it more than someone 20 years older, such as myself(!) (as of 2022, in my later 30s). Overall I wouldn't expressly recommend this film as such, no. It is perhaps thoughtful and perhaps there's a poignancy to it at times but its also somewhat tacky and like I say, didn't sit entirely well with me, so it's not one I'd entirely recommend.

Based on the Haruki Murakami novel, Norwegian Wood follows the story of a young man whose love is divided between a depression prone friend and a free-spirited fellow student. Filled with meditations on life, love, and death, the film features beautiful cinematography and nicely understated performances from the three lead characters. Norwegian Wood, in many respects, looks and feels like a Terrence Malick film. If you see Malick, post 1997, as a cinematic genius, you will love Norwegian Wood. If you see Malick, post 1997, as a pretentious bore, you will probably hate Norwegian Wood.

While it succeeds in capturing the visuals and mood with its cinematography and sound respectively, it misses the mark in bringing up the deeper narrative to those unfamiliar with the source material.

pretty weird movie about loss

It's a very good complement to the book. When you enter the movie theater you shouldn't relay completely to the book, instead enjoy what´s seen on screen, and this movie surely delivers beautiful photography, memorable soundtrack, good acting and a powerful story.

A good book can't necessarily be turned into a good film, and Norwegian Wood is surely one of them for alienating its audience.

While the plot is pretty straightforward, there is a lot of missed chances and nostalgia in the movie. Very beautifully shot.

I enjoyed the film but after loving the book, I found it overall disappointing. The film doesn't explore the relationship between Toru and Midori in enough depth and also leaves behind the key role of Reiko. I also thought Toru was portrayed as much less upbeat and optimistic than in the first half of the book at least. It's not clear at all that Toru was on the verge of choosing Midori over Naoko: in the film, it feels like he's ended up with Midori because Naoko dies. That's not the case in the book. One positive was the portrayal of the relationship between Naoko and Toru which was conveyed to a high degree of detail and poignancy.

After reading the original novel, watching this film made it clear to me that there are stories that should stay as they were created, like stories. With good visuals and harmonic cinematography, "Norwegian Wood" offers nothing more. The story is not very fluent and its narrative is even quite horrific, although it very well shapes the context of Japan at the time and supposedly enters the minds of young people, this excessively long plot is too slow and silly to be enjoyed if you want to. Indeed, it is quite dull and flat. It is okay for the subject to turn into the supposed love, sacrifice and sexual awakening, but everything is kept on a very superficial level, it is exhausting and has a very little enthusiasm in which the darkness of the film simply emptied even more the non-interesting messages and performances of its characters. 48/100

This is a film about love, loss, sex, and death. I wouldn't call it an enjoyable film to watch, but it has an important message. It is a beautiful film visually, although the soundtrack does let the visuals down somewhat in my opinion. It's a film that should be seen once. Personally, I probably won't be seeing it a second time.

Japanese language with subtitles Director \ Writer Anh Hung Tran Its a good film but I feel it is overloaded with experience for the young protagonists. The entire film is based on two characters aged 19 and 20. And yet all the things they experience emotionally is way beyond that age band. Its like an older author expressing perfectly valid, shitty, end of life experiences and projecting them on to a young couple. There is no nudity (maybe a bit) but the sexual dialogue is gripping, you would never hear this dialogue in a standard Hollywood film - and that is refreshing because of the human honesty of sex. "Why did I not get wet with him? But I do with you?" and much more. The film starts with a life time three-friend group, two male friends and a common female friend. Then one male friend commits suicide. We are left with two deeply traumatised people. One - the bloke, tries to be as normal as possible - he is a thoroughly decent guy, but the girl falls apart. Towards the end I felt sorry for him - he's a normal bloke wanting sex but he gets these perverse choices - what if you are not into dom, infidelity, mental breakdown? Very interesting film.

Slow paced film following a guy that feels rather country hanging with one girl feeling rather down and rock and roll once and another girl hanging with him feeling up and rather rock and roll all the time. The film is a bit trippy with pleasant music. Seems to be about the angst of growing adult. And the temptation of rock and roll. Rock and roll being a relief from the angst of growing adult and closer to death I suppose. The film is some sort of beauty, a beautiful pain that wants to linger and take some away. The survivors are into rock and roll. Some sign of psychopathy amongst the characters that would explain much..

soliden film po knigata na Haruki Murakami...i da, naslovot e po pesnata na The Beatles, ako se prasuvate...

By removing the aching empathy we have towards each of Murakami's characters, this adaption is no more than a skim-read of a novel that deserved a genuine recital. The films story is squashed together in broken clippings and lacks the woven story telling and character depth that Murakami (by contrast) delivers in waves. The portrayal of Reiko in the film was also especially disappointing for me, as well as the omission of her own story altogether. I can only assume this was ruled as nothing more than unnecessary conjecture by Tran; in a adaption where only the headlines survived the edit. The film is only saved by the quality of the acting and the beautiful cinematography throughout. Unfortunately for Tran, by having us watch this tale with our eyes rather than our minds, we were always destined to absorb only a fraction of what Murakami allowed our imaginations to see.

Without myself having any connection to the novel, this film is exhaustingly somber and tense in ways that distract and enhance, the best and most trying among them Jonny Greenwood's curdling score, which, narrative forgotten, carries something in cinematographer Ping Bin Lee's wide images that's at the very least haunting.

Either I'm much more of an optimist than I thought, or this is this is the most depressing adaptation of a book I've ever seen. The book was about hope and honesty and caring and the movie was about dull, dramatic idiots. I hated it lol.

beautiful, melancholic but very long-winded...