Umizaru (which literally means "sea monkey") is the local term to describe Japan Coast Guard (JCG) officer trainees due to their wild drinking and behaviour in town. The first movie tells the story about 14 trainees spending 50 days together for their training. The second movie (is also known as Umizaru 2: Limit of Love) is set 2 years after the first movie with Daisuke Senzaki is a novice search and rescue member of JCG.
The first movie is terribly bad. Even though the synopsis mentions 14 trainees, the focus is only 3, if not 4, of the trainees. Senzaki, who is considered as a super rookie among his superiors, is paired up with Kato, perhaps the weakest among them all. Mishima is portrayed as Senzaki's rival who aims to graduate as the top. The main question posed to the trainees is "If you are 40m deep, only with your buddy, with only 30bar of oxygen left enough for 1 person to surface, what will you do?". Senzaki, as the main character, will do anything so he and his partner can survive, while Mishima thinks that the stronger one (who is able to surface) should surface. With that, the whole plot is extremely guess-able with Senzaki inspiring Mishima by saving him.
The idea of teamwork is good but it is not good enough for a whole movie to be based on that. At the beginning, it is shown how they are united to help Kato to pass the training. In the middle, it is quite lame with Kato being dead for failing to help a drowning man. That is how Senzaki ends up being paired with Mishima for the final test. The ending is even lamer. While Senzaki stays true to his words and does not leave Mishima under the sea, he does pretty much nothing except for sharing his oxygen tank. Of course hero may not do everything to make the story nice. But if not because of the Captain sending down the other trainees to search for them (by defying HQ's order), the 2 of them are as good as dead under the sea. Basically it fails to show Senzaki's will "to do anything for him and his partner to survive". Ironically, Mishima stays true to himself that the stronger one who is able to survive should surface. He actually insisted Senzaki on leaving him (his legs are trapped under a boulder) instead of dying trying to rescue him.
The second movie is much more appealing. No surprise that it was a huge box office hits in Japan upon release. It is somehow similar with Titanic because the setting is a sinking ship. Senzaki and his partner, Yoshioka, are trapped with 2 other passengers (one man with broken leg and one pregnant lady). As his walkie talkie is spoilt, the HQ thought they lose contact with i.e no chance of survival. While some still do not want to give and continue searching, some feels that it is not wise putting more people at risk when it is still unsure whether the 4 people are still alive. The director manage to present this dillema nicely without presenting the latter group as antagonist. The dillema of giving up the 4 instead of putting many more at risk is realistic. How do we compare whose lives are more worthwhile to save?
Of course no matter what happens or how sad it becomes in the middle, I sort of know that all the 4 of them survived. The idea of standing up for your buddy is successfully portrayed here. Yoshioka is trapped. Senzaki has to continue (to escort the 2 passengers to safety) so he leaves an oxygen tank with Yoshioka. The oxygen tank is left behind by the other search and rescue team, who was told to cease operation, because the team believes that's the only thing they can do: to leave help and hope that the trapped people can reach that part.
Later on Senzaki finds a handphone and manages to contact with the rest of the team. Upon knowing that the 4 of them are still alive, even the people who initally suggested to cease operation agrees to continue the search and rescue effort despite HQ order to continue at 0600 on the following day.
I felt there was a gap between the 2 movies. And in the ending credits, there are scenes which I never see before. Actually after the first movie, there is an 11-episode dorama. From then, it continues to the second movie. Aaah, that makes sense! I also find out that there is a third movie Umizaru 3: The Last Message released in 2010 and a fourth one is coming out this 2012. Gotta find these missing pieces. But I am disappointed with the "14 traines" tag from the first movie, which supposedly opens the whole series. So what's up with the rest of them?
I actually bought the VCD boxset few years back and have yet to watch. This time I was worried that the VCD will go spoilt so I watched lor. Overall, I think it is a nice series. But I gotta watch the dorama and the other movies first to really say it is a nice series. After all the first movie is terrible. Lol. Ok I may be biased but the reason I like the 2nd movie is also because of Sato Ryuta (who plays Yoshioka). I always like to see genki character. And I watched him as the inspiring teacher in Rookies previously.
It is interesting to know a bit more about search and rescue. If there are disasters, we often read operation is called off due to bad weather. We often think why the authority is wasting time and letting any possible survivors die. But to be fair to the other side, it is always about making a tough decision about human lives: how many to (possible) survivors and how many are put at risk to rescue the (possible) survivors.
I recommend this to all selfish people out there who thinks friends are overrated. But if you are working on a life-death situation like this, you have to depend/rely/trust your comrades. I, too, hope I can have such "good" buddies in real life. I doubt I can ever find it. People who never brush life and death can never appreciate it.
Thumbs up for the director. I am amazed that he can make 2 movies with NO antagonist to spice up the story. Different attitudes are presented without condemning this one is good and that one is bad. Even in the face of disaster, we see 2 faces: one of those struggling not to give up and of those surrendering to fate. Again, those surrendering to fate are not necessarily "bad". Just imagine if you are trapped underwater alone, would you struggle to lift that boulder or would you just breath in and "sleep" peacefully while the oxygen tank lasts?
Ooops, this is longer than I expected! Haha..
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