Antique (Movie)

A Cast as Tasty as Cake?

So I just finished watching the 2009 Korean movie "Antique". The movie is a real life adaptation of my favorite manga, "Antique Bakery," by Fumi Yoshinaga.

The original covers had scratch and sniff stickers.

Antique Bakery is an amazing story. Fumi Yoshinaga is an amazing mangaka. To quote one review of her work, "...she’s so damn good at making comics that it’s almost unfair to all the other mangaka out there." And, it's not hyperbole. Fumi Yoshinaga is a great story teller. Her ability to deal with chronology is something I'm envious of. In her hands, time is fluid, sequenced, filmlike and yet literary. I can't explain it. I wish I could do it with my own work. You have to read Antique Bakery or maybe even Ooku to see what I mean.

I have such a deep seated admiration for Fumi Yoshinaga's work that I would happily rename this the Fumi Yoshinaga blog and only cover her stories and adaptations of her stories for as long as I could.

But where was I? Yes, Antique Bakery. This manga got me into my thirties because its characters were in their thirties or almost there. I'm not going to review this manga right now. I'll just say it is beloved by me. It follows four men who run a bakery. That's the premise at least. It's a drama, a comedy and a bit of a crime/mystery story. There are no speed lines or ninja high kicks, no sword action and not that many high school girls. But, it's good anyway.

So there is an anime version, which I watched one episode of. It was boring. If it got better, I don't know, and I guess a tv show too, but I heard the main character who is gay in the comic is not gay in the show, which is just weird because a huge portion of the comic focuses on how this affects him and those around him.This isn't a yaoi story. It's really just a story with a gay character, so I'm not sure why the producers of the show made that call. Or, maybe they though they could because it isn't yaoi? In any case, I'll let it slide.

Now we come to "Antique." I was worried I would hate it, but I didn't. I loved the casting.

I'd like to have some desert please!

And I think the movie stayed true to the spirit of the manga, even when it couldn't capture every story or each thing that made the characters unique. It was interesting to see what the film makers did focus on and how they changed Fumi Yoshinaga's classic. All in all, it was a spirited, sweet movie with AMAZING CAKES throughout. I can't help but wonder what someone who may have never read the comic might think of it.

Oh, did I fail to mention there is also a hot French guy in this movie?