From manga to anime, along with the last transition to live-action film. The Death Note Duology finally make’s its toll into the blockbuster network. This film was released back in 2006. Its main purpose was to bring our favourable manga characters to life and show the true meaning of the Japanese comic’s immersed plot.

Without a doubt, it did not disappoint. Death Note chronicles the life of Light Yagami, portrayed by Tatsuyama Fujiwara. As a bored prodigy teenager, he encounters the phenomenal note-book that grants him the power to kill anyone of a heart attack of whom he knows the name of and by visualizing the person’s face. The very idea of this psychological thriller has never made such a connection with its audience. A simple notebook that can eliminate any person at the user’s free will from the flick of a pen is almost too much to bear.

As the storyline roles on, another foil emerges. This time, its yet another virtuoso who has the exact intentions in confronting Light. With everyone mingling away in terror. The World’s greatest detective known as L is one of the most loveable and yet mysterious characters ever to be shown on screen. As you follow along, you will eventually begin to see the sheer ingenious plans that both L and Light have up their sleeves. The acting invoked in both characters is just as the fans would imagine from the manga. Light as a liberal constrained yet smart student and L with his cold, apathetic and meticulously obsessed demeanour.

With these two lead characters up in the stage, there was no telling how the story was going to turn out. It was practically unpredictable. The CGI produced in this film isn’t as bad as everyone would of expected. It was quite understandable due to the short schedule they had to produce both films. But in the end, they were able to lucidly create mere visualizations of the shinigami. As for the soundtracks, a lot of them were similarly composed of low-pitch suspense tones that really drew the tension out from the film. It really suited the scenes very well and it kept my interest flowing. This is what led me to the conclusion that the camera work was relatively simple and straightforward. Most of the time, the shots were focused at lengthy durations and it would always seem to pan with the characters. It also never seemed to cut too often or follow the 180 Degree rule that much. So as far as viewers are concerned, this sort of style isn’t unusual for a typical Japanese film.

In a nutshell, Death Note is a must see for those who prefer experiencing the likes of sub-genre thriller’s along with likeable characters and a solid plot. It ultimately brings the whole of Japan down to its knee’s while prodigy versus prodigy play away at their intellectual mind game. At the end of Part I, it’s the icing on the cake…