kraoroz

Aku no Hana is the most important work of Shuzo Oshimi and, from my perspective, this live action (unlike many live actions) does justice to the story he created with very little details untouched and with a non-linear way to tell the plot that maintains the attention of the audience. I recommend watching the movie after reading the manga, because it focuses on the highlights and jumps in time, which can be confusing if you're not familiar to Shuzo Oshimi's story.

Pros:

• Great soundtrack (like Hana-Hikari From regal Lily)
• Very little left untouched from the original work (just some events from secondary characters weren't there like saeki's friend plot or Tokiwa's boyfriend plot).
• Attention to detail. Every important frame from the manga has a very close frame in the movie and is beautiful in general (colors, costume, scenery, etc.)
• Well tackled explicit scenes. The manga has very hardcore explicit scenes which are very hard to act and could reduce the audience, but I think they made a good job not leaving them behind but to making them a little less explicit without changing the facts.

Cons:

• From a newcomer, the movie can be a little confusing, but that happens with Shuzo Oshimi's work as well.
• If you're not into eastern cinema/anime you'll probably have a problem with the acting in general, but I assure you that the weirdness comes from the original work. The characteristic screaming and the shy/rare kind of acting is one example of that.
• For some people Sawa has to be "objectively ugly" so the actress doesn't fit for them. Without talking too much about the unavoidable subjectivity of ugliness, i don't agree with that.

Give it a try. This is a beautiful/strange story about growing up, without western cliches and with different ways of loving people recognizing how much they contributed to us to become what we are today.