Netflix’s reimagined take on “Death Note” is quite different from the anime series, or the manga comic books by Tsugami Ohba and Takeshi Obata. In a recent media video conference, the film’s director, Adam Wingard, said that they intentionally did not want to create a direct adaptation, and created an origin story instead.
The end product is a truly Westernized version, with scenes unfolding differently and characters developing arcs that deviate from their Japanese counterparts.
Nat Wolff — better known for his starring roles in young adult fiction inspired films such as “Paper Towns” and “The Fault in Our Stars” — stars as Light Turner, the teenager who discovers the magical power of the Death Note and executes a series of murders under the moniker ‘Kira.’
Lakeith Stanfield, whose screen credits include “Get Out” and “Snowden,” plays the character known as L, a special investigator who makes it his mission to track down an apprehend the serial killer. Margaret Qualley, otherwise known as Jill Garvey in HBO’s “The Leftovers,” takes on the role of Mia Sutton, Light’s eventual love interest and the only other person who knows about Kira and the Death Note.
Veteran actor Willem Dafoe lends his voice to Ryuk, a Japanese god of death who gives Light the Death Note and therefore allows mayhem to unfold.
The live-action film has its light funny moments, but is essentially dark and grisly till the end. Flesh and blood splatter everywhere, as the persons named in the notebook suffer gruesome deaths. And of course, there are the stunts and the chase between Light and L, which is an important element in the plot.
The scenes in the film happen more quickly than in the anime series, as the events unfold in a matter of months instead of several years. The ones showing Nat and Lakeith chasing each other are over in a matter of minutes, but were actually more difficult to film than they appeared on screen.
Nat recalls, “We had about three weeks of like, just chasing each other. We’d go from gross-looking hotels to, like, gross-looking alley ways, and, like, a dingy kitchen. Pretty much just chasing each other and like one of my most fun memories in the movie is kind of like all in one shot. We ran the back of a kitchen through all these knives and forks and stuff. I fell down, then Keith jumped over, then I ran to the kitchen doors, I jumped over the tables, knocking plates over. And then Keith slid and on the first take, just kicked right into the camera.”
Lakeith shares, “Running was difficult. We had a lot of running, but it was very, very fun. I dunno, I loved it. I hadn’t been as exhausted on a film. The physicality of it. It was a really challenging, physical thing to get into, but that also became the fun-est part.”
The film’s director remembers working on one of the scenes which required Lakeith’s character to perform stunts.
“The first few takes we had L was supposed to jump over the police car, and so I didn’t want to risk injuring Keith during that sequence. And this was before I had actually seen him doing L’s run before? So the first few takes, we let a stunt person do it.”
He soon realized that they didn’t really need a stunt man. “Then after that we brought in Lakeith to do the scenes. And then when I saw Keith’s run, I realized we totally screwed up by even using a stunt man because there’s no way he and L could be mistaken for each other, because other person could imitate the running that he (Lakeith) did.”
“I hurt myself jumping all over those cars, that really hurt. Let everyone know about that,” Lakeith said in jest.
Margaret also had her own memorable moments during filming, particularly in one scene.
“I was supposed to be like really scared while I was falling, you drop on your back and I was all wired in, and I wasn’t really scared in real life so I kept on laughing, and I think I cost them a lot of time and maybe money doing that.”
Adam chimes in to share his own recollection, saying, “She’s literally having the fall backwards like six floors up. But you know, she was wired up but literally freefalling six floors and I’d be scared to death to do it! But she literally having just way too much fun the first three or four takes we did. And mind you it was in slow motion so it was really difficult even to just keep it in focus.”
“And so the crew’s very serious, and the first few takes, they would just drop Margaret, you know, six floors, mind you. And she would ruin the takes because she would just start laughing, which is not the natural response for something like that.”
“But you know, that’s what’s so cool about these guys, that they were really willing to do as much of it as possible,” Adam said.
“Death Note” is currently available for viewing through Netflix.
