My Reviews of Oriental Films
So far I've got movies from Taiwan, China, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. Most are from Japan, obviously.
Some of these reviews are quite old, perhaps as much as 15-16 years, so I can't really vouch for them representing my current opinions on the movies in question.
At the bottom of the list are the ones I failed to review.
Listed in no particular order, except that all the latest additions will be placed on top.
Some of these reviews are quite old, perhaps as much as 15-16 years, so I can't really vouch for them representing my current opinions on the movies in question.
At the bottom of the list are the ones I failed to review.
Listed in no particular order, except that all the latest additions will be placed on top.
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- DirectorSion SonoStarsRyo IshibashiMasatoshi NagaseMai HoshoA detective is trying to find the cause of a string of suicides.High cringe.
1/10
High cringe. I felt embarrassed for the Japanese, that they actually have even bigger trash than the rubbish we get from the West. This is even worse than "American Mary" or even "Devil's Rejects". Those films have scripts at least, cretinous as they are, but at least they have some sort of story to offer to its moronic audiences. No story here though...
The mystery is built up, stupidly, and it may be an unusual premise but you just know light-years in advance that the resolution will be an all-out letdown, which is one of the reasons why it is never intriguing. After all, HOW do you explain mass suicides taking place all over Japan? Has to be supernatural, right?
Well, perhaps not quite. Believe it or not, behind this incredible conspiracy is just a bunch of J-pop poseurs. They are the "masterminds". The "big reveal" is a big fat joke: a laughable corporate-like boy-band orchestrates all the "suicides". God knows how... The movie doesn't bother to explain. They simply do, because they can. They have magic powers or whatever. How? Where from? What's their motive? Who the hell knows. This is a very amateur script so having any kind of expectations is pretty naive.
A laughable reveal, and facepalm to the point of hilarity almost. When these clowns first appeared I almost laughed. Almost. I didn't because I was too bored by that point to react in any way. Quite literally, a Japanese version of Asking Alexandria is somehow responsible for masses of deranged teens spontaneously dropping off buildings. Yet another very dumb "horror" film that relies on a humorous premise to deliver "chills". Shoulda been a comedy. A dumb comedy, a bad comedy, but at least they'd get one thing right: the genre. No small achievement for an amateur film-maker...
One of the most randomly plotted "horror" films ever made. As incoherent, useless, trashy and idiotic as any experimental film by Bjork's ex-husband. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, maybe not that horrendous, but not far either. Certainly the last third of this silly trash is as bad as anything put on camera before.
Unfortunately, it's not even a matter of a good beginning and a dumb "resolution" (which doesn't exist). This crappola is idiotic from the very start. Starts stupid, ends much worse. As if 50 girls holding hands in a subway and chanting nonsense would go unnoticed by other travelers. Yet it does. Everybody ignores them. As if dozens of bodies falling to the ground of a school would go unnoticed by the other kids: yet it does, to the most part. When the second batch of teens fall off the roof, the kids inside the classrooms were still oblivious to the many bodies that fell just minutes earlier. All those loud THUDS just seem to have not made their way to the ears of 100s of kids... Somehow. Not to mention so many bodies zipping by their windows. Very big, open windows. It wouldn't even work in a comedy.
The detective actually wants to keep the suicides hush-hush - as if 100s of people dying in such spectacular fashion, and in public places, can go unnoticed. Even the North Korean regime wouldn't have managed to cover it up. Yet the film is full of this kind of undisciplined rubbish that makes zero sense. Very amateur.
This is only a small fraction of the nonsense. There are many illogical, absurd scenes, with humans behaving randomly - which is partly bad acting, partly the very inept first-draft amateur script. We are never told how the asinine, cringe-inducing boy-band orchestrated the whole thing. In fact, rather than offer at least a vague hint, at least something, the writer-director - who can't be more advanced than a plankton - opted to turn this into a sort of experimental film, vaguely "philosophical" even. This bomb is a ridiculously pretentious concoction of cop-drama, dumb horror, absurd thriller - and an ultra-lame "meaning of life" message that baits the most foolish of fools into believing that it's intelligent. Hallucinatory experiences are however very common among film-goers, especially the current younger crop hence why the positive comments section is a real hoot (yet again).
A total, complete mess without an ounce of intelligence. All the uber-optimistic hipsters and naivelings who claim to have understood the "poignant philosophical message" are very probably 15 year-old mangatards whose brains had been replaced by moldy cabbages at birth. Manga readers, totally used to cretinous stories and zero logic and brainwashed to not discern between rubbish and quality, are easily duped into thinking that this is some sort of high-and-mighty "artistic" statement about suicide and life. But this is about as "deep" as an episode of Flash Gordon.
In fact, it is a fairly common practice by some trashploitation "film-makers" to pretend to carry a message along with all the shlock-violence- as an excuse for being cheap titillation, or as a way to distract (the naivelings) from all the junk. In a sense, when a trashploitation piece of junk offers a "message", it is merely an attempt to package a turd in a glitzy wrapping, as if sending someone your own excrement as a birthday gift, wrapped up in a shiny, nice box. Fortunately for all of these Uwe Bolls and Rob Zombies, there are enough dunces out there that get conned this way. Besides, there are many degenerates who simply love trash for trash's sake. It's not even aesthetically pleasing trash: the photography is very average hence the movie has nothing to offer. Aside from neatly packaged excrement, of course.
HOW exactly brains are replaced by moldy cabbages has no explanation either, I admit it. But at least it's a far more realistic occurrence than the rubbish in this amateur plot. I am far more likely to believe in the existence of cabbage-brained idiots than this tripe. After all, the writer-director is living proof of this. And the cabbage in his head is even smaller and moldier than those in the heads of his fans. If that's even possible...
AND the movie even tortures us with some really horrible J-pop singing-and-dancing, a song that is repeated over and over throughout the film, VERY predictably being connected to the suicides. HOW this braindead girl-group has anything to do with the murders is anyone's guess. Though more likely it's far more connected to planktons, cabbages and mangatardation... Admittedly, I kinda rushed my way through the last 15-20 minutes (the Holy Skip Button), so I didn't pay attention to the "details", but from what little I did read in that segment there is extremely little chance that anything remotely useful or intelligent was being said.
After all, it's garbage. - DirectorShunichi NagasakiStarsYui NatsukawaMichitaka TsutsuiChiaki KuriyamaWhen Hinako was a child she was separated from Fumiya and Sayori as she moved to Tokyo. Now she has returned to Shikoku, but it turns out that Sayori drowned. When Hinako starts seeing Sayori in her dreams, she seeks help from Fumiya.3/10
The very drawn-out, snail-paced plot kills the movie completely. Add to this an atmosphere which is severely lacking and you get something quite boring. The drab photography (much more suitable for a TV drama), and the under-use of music only make things even worse.
I don't exaggerate when I say this flop could have been 30-40 minutes shorter. Should have been fast-paced as most horror films should be.
The female lead loses her boyfriend when here undead zombie rival snaps him like a twig, yet she doesn't even react. Great "love", huh?
While most western movie teens are played by adults or teens somewhat older than what they're supposed to represent, here we have an odd reversed situation whereby the 16 year-old female demon is played by a 14 or 15 year-old actress. It's the unattractive one from "Kill Bill", the one Tarantino felt was ideal to play the mega-slaying teeny-bopper. - DirectorHiguchinskyStarsEriko HatsuneFhi FanHinako SaekiThe inhabitants of a small Japanese town become increasingly obsessed with and tormented by spirals.Inferior to the COMIC-BOOK, but nevertheless not a failure.
6/10
Based on the well-known manga comic-book (yes, mangas ARE comic-books, despite what confused hipsters and weeaboos claim) which consists of three volumes i.e. About 20 short stories so obviously the movie only took bits and pieces. Already in that regard by definition it is inferior to the comics.
Believe it or not, the comic-book series is better, despite being a manga. That's because it just happens to be one of the very few good manga series, i.e. One of the few Japanese serials that are very well illustrated, meaning that it does not feature silly-looking quasi-Orientals with enormous ear-to-ear mouths, generic boring drawing, and absurd over-the-top facial expressions which (bad) mangas are notorious for. The comic has better-developed stories, more detail and is visually more impressive than the movie. Then again, comics usually are. (Except the crappily illustrated ones.)
The movie is dominated by a greenish hue that makes it appear to be dipped in moss. This mono-colour approach gives it a certain mood, but it also serves to kill the visual appeal of the bizarre story. The mono-colour approach had spread throughout modern cinema faster than the spirals... Which of these two evils is eviler?
The premise is not only original, it is unique. Hence probably why an "arthouse" approach was chosen, which was not a bad idea. What mires the movie is a somewhat random collection of events that make up the plot. A better writer would have condensed the manga stories in a way that builds up the plot more effectively, connecting the stories more efficiently than this.
A very pretty female cast helps, as is often the case with Japanese films. Especially the female lead is very cute and she does a great job. The Japanese respect their male audiences a LOT more than U. S. or especially British film-makers who think it's "hip" to cast homely women in lead roles. Why else do you think Meryl Streep has had such a career? In Japan nobody would have touched her with a 47-foot pole.
The awful J-pop song in the end-credits ruins the impression somewhat. How and why an "arty" horror film ends with a dumb, generic pop song escapes my logic. Some film-makers completely underestimate the importance of music, or they're simply tone-deaf. Or perhaps they figured that all manga readers are empty-headed J-pop teenies. Well, not all of them are. And even if they were, this movie wasn't intended just for fans of the serial. - DirectorTony KernAndrew LauStarsFaridino AssalamFarid AzlamSheena ChanIn January of 2010, a group of local filmmakers began exploring the famously haunted Old Changi Hospital in Singapore with terrifying and tragic results. This movie pieces together the original Haunted Changi film crew's footage to tell the full story.Changi the Happy Squirrel.
1/10
Incredibly boring Asian flick that's a real chore to sit through. Nothing remotely interesting here: no exaggeration. Just another pitiful found-in-sewage stinker made by people who need to go back to film school... or visit it for the first time ever.
Or just find a different job. Much better option. It takes talent and brains to create an effective horror film. This is the complete opposite. Nobody who worked on this film has a clue about movies, much less about scares and suspense.
So boring and 100% unscary that I had to press the skip button quite often. If you want to ever be fully bored by a movie, get this crap.
Even the title sucks. Changi? That sounds like a Walt Disney squirrel or something. - DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsHayato IchiharaRiko NarumiShô AoyagiIn the ruthless underground world of the yakuza, no one is more legendary than boss Kamiura. Rumored to be invincible, the truth is he is a vampire-a bloodsucking yakuza vampire boss! Among Kamiura's gang is Kageyama, his most loyal underling. However, the others in the gang view Kageyama with disdain and ridicule him for his inability to get tattooed due to sensitive skin. One day, assassins aware of boss Kamiura's secret arrive from abroad and deliver him an ultimatum: Return to the international syndicate he left years ago, or die. Kamiura refuses and, during a fierce battle with anime-otaku martial-arts expert Kyoken, is torn limb from limb. With his dying breath, Kamiura bites Kageyama, passing on his vampire powers to the unsuspecting yakuza. As he begins to awaken to his newfound abilities, Kageyama's desire to avenge the murder of boss Kamiura sets him on a course for a violent confrontation with Kaeru-kun, the foreign syndicate's mysterious and seemingly unstoppable leader!Starts devolving very early on, ending as a total mess.
4/10
Starts off as a more-or-less normal mob film, but by the time it reaches the last third it's a very silly chop-sokey weird-for-the-sake-of-it cheese-bomb full of nonsense and random crap. The comedy simply doesn't work, at all, because there is an over-reliance on farcical silliness as a substitute for good comedic writing.
Foolish as I was, after the first half-hour I started noticing the many loose ends and illogicalities mounting up, not knowing at that early point what a bizarre little turd-fest this would turn into. Obviously, there's no need at all to discuss these plot-holes, if we can call them that, in a movie that so blatantly doesn't give a damn about narrative or even a style/direction it wants to take. It's an amalgamation of various genres, written as if under the influence of vodka or Bolivian mushy rooms.
Also far too long. Clocking in at almost two hours, it is at the very least 30 minutes too long, with a number of boring or absurd or stretched-out scenes that make it tough to sit through this, unless you're such a chop-sokey and Oriental-film aficionado that you can actually find other things to like about this increasingly boring film. It's ironic, of course, because I am convinced the director intended the film to become progressively involving rather than devolving. But I doubt many people above the age of 19 will find that this is the case. Or 12.
At least it's visually much slicker and better than most Oriental horror films. Although, to be frank, horror is just one of the many styles this malarkey touches on. - DirectorYong-gyun KimStarsLee Si-youngUhm Ki-joonLee Do-yeopPopular horror web-comic artist Ji Yoon finds life imitating her own work when her publisher turns up dead in a way, precisely mirrors the images in her latest comic.A text-book example of the devolution of a script.
1/10
Finally an Oriental horror film without long-haired girl-ghost killers.
No, wait. Not quite. They had to sneak one in after about an hour. They just had to. From around 30 Oriental horror films I've seen so far, perhaps only 2-3 don't have long-haired girl-ghost killers as the antagonist. They certainly don't have any male ghosts, that's for sure. Talk about autistic levels of obsession. Someone needs to tell Korean/Japanese/Thai/Chinese film-makers that there ARE other premises for horror films other than "scary" straight-haired teeny-boppers (or young women) threatening people from wells, TV sets and from just about anywhere else. Ironically, perhaps they believe there is a curse on film-makers who DARE venture into non-long-haired-teen-chick-ghost-killer territory? Anyone who dares break this unwritten rule (because it was written by ghosts hence with invisible ink hence unwritten) will be immediately killed by a long-haired ghost-chick killer. Or 7 days later, especially if there is a VHS tape or Polaroid camera involved.
That might explain it.
But essentially this isn't such a movie. I almost wish it was though, because the story on offer here is probably worse and dumber than all the long-haired girl-ghost killer films combined.
You won't find a better example of a movie starting well, then gradually dissolving, until it completely - 100% - disintegrates under its own weight of contradictions, unnecessary plot-twists and a total disregard for logic, than this film. By the time KT finishes, we find out that THREE main characters (i.e. basically all of them) are homicidal lunatics. First, the baby-faced cop: turns out it is he who killed the mysterious ghost-whispering girl 6 years prior by accident. Or was it a different girl? Hard to tell; the movie isn't telling - and I ain't begging (for an answer). The moment the movie resorted to the hey-the-cop's-the-killer mega-cliché which has been beaten to death since it started in the 90s, I lost interest in the movie, completely. (Not that it was particularly captivating until then, mind you. It was average.) If it's the ghost-whisperer that Baby-face killed 6 years ago, then what are the odds that he gets THIS case so many years later?! Then again, it's an IF only, because I really don't know whether it was her under his car or some random Korean schoolgirl.
Besides, his behavior until he kidnaps Wang contradicts his new status as a cold-blooded murderer. He shows compassion toward the girl after he runs over her, and he genuinely loves his unborn daughter. So how does that gel with him becoming a sadistic killer? It doesn't. It's just your typical bad writing.
It gets dumber. The female protagonist, Wang, turns out to be insane, and not only that but a homicidal lunatic to boot. (Again, nothing in her behavior prior to the finale even remotely hints that she might be either a sadistic killer or mentally unstable.) It is she who killed the ghost-whisperer. Or not? The movie refuses to be clear about this. It makes zero sense for the cartoonist Wang to kill a girl she selflessly took under her own wings to protect her from harassment. But hey, some horror thrillers will do anything for a plot-twist. Or YET ANOTHER plot-twist. It's this kind of overly eager-to-please "crowd-pleasing" sloppy writing that ruins many horrors and thrillers, because the majority of young screen-writers are under the misapprehension that audiences would kill for a plot-twist, that we need not one or two but at least 10 of them in the final third. They actually believe that a horror or thriller movie cannot exist without a whole sack of crappy plot-twists. Plot-twists as popcorn substitute?
Which is why we have the third mega-stupid plot-twist when the main detective turns into a sadistic killer too. Why did he kill his baby-faced psycho colleague? It isn't clear at all. There is literally no motive. By killing him he jeopardized his career, yet gained nothing. Just as it made no sense for Baby-Face to want to kill Wang, it made no sense for the detective to want to kill Baby-Face.
And, to make this laughable idiot circle/triangle complete, Wang decides to kill the detective! Yup, no joke: Baby-Face inexplicably tries to murder Wang, then the detective kills Baby-Face, and then Wang tries to kill the detective. Surprised? You should be, because nowhere in the tags is "comedy" mentioned as a genre. This plays out like a goofy farce.
This asinine "kill triangle" is only part of the overall nonsense. There is plenty more absurdity, but I literally cannot be bothered to discuss it all. But I can't not mention the idiotic scene in which Wang killed(?) her young female friend in a huge fire - a scene that has the two of them talking and fighting endlessly while surrounded by vast amounts of flames - and I presume smoke also, which is strangely absent though. Risk of carbon monoxide poisoning? None, apparently. A little later, the main characters show off yet more physical resilience/immunity to the laws of physics and biology when Wang and the detective proceed to mortally wound each other, yet perfectly able to stand up, talk, survive...
The last 30 minutes literally consists of a long series of plot-twists, stumbling over each other clumsily and stupidly. It is a classic example of a clueless, lazy writer getting lost in the forest of illogic that he'd himself created, trying to disentangle the mystery but achieving the exact opposite: making the movie completely unintelligible and utterly illogical. The writer set up a more-or-less original premise, but due to his excessive incompetence wasn't able to resolve it logically hence resorted to a series of stupid twists and turns, perhaps hoping that the viewers would be so confused they'd fail to notice how idiotic the story is.
The very bland visual style, typical of Oriental movies, doesn't help either. - DirectorSong Il-gonStarsKam Woo-seongJung SuhKang Kyung-hunA recently widowed TV producer is drawn to an isolated cabin in a mysterious woods.Yet another example how "foreign" (i.e. non-American) horror films get overrated - just because they're foreign.
3/10
A bulk of IMDb's users are American. This explains entirely why American horror films are far more underrated than non-American ones, hence why "foreign" films on IMDb get much higher averages. Or perhaps it's because they're better? Hell no. Most Oriental horror films are just as generic as their Western counterparts, the vast bulk of Italian i.e. Gallo films are awful hack-jobs, most French horror films are more stylish but very flawed too. A typical non-American horror film has a rating of over 6, whereas a typical American horror film gets around 5 stars or less. The reason for this is simple: Americans have a sort of quasi-inferiority complex when it comes to cinema - at least among cinephiles this is true. Film buffs tend to get way too easily impressed by subtitles and incomprehensible languages. The snobs and hipsters that they often are, these so-called film buffs assume that - for example - a European movie has to be intellectual by default. "Ah, a European film! Must be intelligent." This is why IMDb's averages can only mean something when you compare movies within the same genre and from the same country. Don't ever make the mistake of comparing the averages of an American and a non-American (horror) movie. That leads to confusion and false expectations.
Anyway...
"Spider Island" - or "Gemini Soup" as it's called in its original - is like yet another David Lynch con-job in the Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive manner, in the sense that a complex mystery is set up but there is not even a half-way logical resolution, no real attempt to explain anything, just very vague "hints" that don't tie in with anything coherently.
Worse yet, the director clumsily makes bad transitions from back story to present to fantasy, and the three get so entangled, to the extent where it's impossible to tell which is which or when a shift from one to the other even takes place. The icing on the confusion cake comes with the three female leads, all of which are virtually indistinguishable from one another; name tags would have helped (like at McDonald's), because watching these virtual triplets alternately interact with the male lead - confounded by the awful time-transitions and clumsy editing - ensured that I had no clue what the hell is going on half the time.
When was he married? Was the office affair after that? Is he a ghost? If he's a ghost why can he talk with the cops? How come cops couldn't use DNA analysis to connect him to the murder? Why did the photo shop girl lie to him when she told him the spider forest story? Very sloppy writing too, not just directing.
A bland visual style, so typical of most Oriental films, doesn't exactly enhance the entertainment factor which is brought to a minimum what with the puzzling plot and the awfully slow pace; two hours is a stretch for this kind of low-grade nonsense.
The actresses are very cute though, as usual, and that certainly helps. - DirectorKar-Wai WongStarsTony Leung Chiu-waiZiyi ZhangFaye WongSeveral women enter a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years, after the author has lost the woman he considers his one true love.This movie about love will make you love the fast-forward button.
3/10
First of all, the movie starts with the caption "Was nominated for a Palme D'Or". If pretentious European critics loved it, then that should be warning enough.
In fact, the caption should say: "WARNING: This movie was in the running for a major European award. You HAVE been warned".
I have rarely been this BORED watching a movie actually, watching ANYTHING. The first half which is more than a full hour is particularly dull. A bunch of uninteresting characters, Clark Gable being the most uninteresting of them all, and dialog that is so irrelevant, so pointless, and so BORING.
To make things worse, everything is set inside, so the movie tends to get a little claustrophobic as well. When we are given the occasional glimpse of the sky it becomes symbolic: symbolic of the viewer's cry for FREEDOM, "Get me out of this closed-up, dull movie!!!" It almost felt like watching "Cube" minus the interesting plot.
I don't mind being confused by a movie (as long as it eventually makes sense, of course) but is it too much to ask to be ENTERTAINED while the confusion lasts? My idea of entertainment isn't a Chinese parody of Clark Gable wooing women that are to the most part way above his league. It is utterly unconvincing the way women throw themselves on him like in some silly episode of "Marlowe".
Not only is the narrator uninteresting and unconvincing as a lover, but he also has a supremely annoying way of talking. Of course I don't understand a word of Chinese, but there is a difference in the way he speaks from the other actors: he extends the last word in a sentence often. Something like this: "bla bla bla chaeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhh.". So ANNOYING.
The themes are definitely trite. Lost love, being obsessed by the past, unrequited love, forbidden love, unrealized love, android love, long-distance love, spaghetti love, octagonal love, ballistic love, long-range cruiser-missile love. Hell, there aren't many types of love the movie doesn't cover. Should be ideal for nerdy film students and bored, romantically-challenged housewives.
I was duped into thinking this was a sci-fi movie. Silly old me, the movie's title being "2046". Is this the director's way of getting more people to watch this drawn-out schmaltzy drama? Was that his idea of a joke? Why not be honest with film fans and call it "A Chinese Imitation Of Clark Gable" or "Yawn-Inducing Drama"? Still, I won't complain like other IMDb reviewers that the movie stole 2 hours of my life bla bla bla. That's because it isn't true. I spent about 75 minutes on the movie. You see, the fast-forward button on the remote is a wonder of mankind and technology. Plus the fact that it's a Chinese movie, so I had subtitles. You see, if you speed up your DVD 2x, you can still catch all the dialog while saving 50% of your time! Sure, I missed on some of the narrator's drawn-out "heeeeeeeeeeenghhhh"s and "choooooooooonehhhh"s, but I think that counts as an additional advantage.
If you are a fast reader, you can even go as fast as 4x on your remote-control fast-forward button! You can finish this yawn fest in less than an hour! The fact that everyone speaks very slowly and that every actor takes ages to respond to another's line, this makes the 4x speed IDEAL.
"10 hours later". "100 hours later". "1000 hours later". Oh, those lovely captions mocking the viewer's state of perpetual boredom. This director is a sadist, and so if you're a movie-masochist you'll make a perfect match.
On the positive side there are the good futuristic sequences. A lot of them are in the opening and closing credits. Perhaps it's best just to watch those and forget about the tedium that's in-between. - DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsKen'ichi EndôShungiku UchidaKazushi WatanabeA troubled and perverted family find their lives intruded by a mysterious stranger who seems to help find a balance in their disturbing natures.Japanese Sh(l)ock Cinema at its "finest". More milk, please...!
5/10
It is hardly surprising that Miike chose one of Ushida's milk-scenes to be the poster promoting the movie. Ushida squirting milk out of her extremely long nipples is not only the most memorable moment in this movie, but one of the most unique "images" in recent movie history. Only from Japan The film is a collage of images that are meant to shock. Anyone who thinks that they were meant to make the viewer think is reading far too much into this, and overestimating both the educational ambitions and intellectual capacity of one Takashi Miike. "Visitor Q", it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain cell, is pure shock cinema, exploitation fare. It has no intellectual value whatsoever. And it doesn't have to have. The only question is, is it fun to watch, is it interesting enough.
Yes and no. The first half drags a bit, even if it does have plenty of absurd and perverse stuff going on which would satisfy any lustful shock-happy wide-eyed cinema-goer (freak). The other problem is the acting and directing which, at certain moments, seems rushed and amateurish. That whole segment with the murder and the disposal of the body looks like John Waters made it i.e. not quite convincing. Some of the acting is good: Ushida, for one, even though she's not really an actress but a manga(?) artist, and the ones playing her kids are okay.
So, what do we have here? There's murder, mutilation, necrophilia, incest, violence, of course milk-squirting, this movie's signature and urination. Or was it defecation? Sorry, I blocked that part of the movie out completely. Also, there's plenty of silly nonsense going on as well. The story is pretty much pointless. I don't buy that stuff about this being "the story of an alienated, dysfunctional family finding unity once again" and some such malarkey.
I wouldn't exactly call this a good movie, but if you're in a certain frame of mind, you can find it watchable.
Btw, if you think the ending is unique, with its "family re-gaining its unity through destruction" message, have a look at 1971's "Little Murders", which has the practically same ending. - DirectorOxide Chun PangStarsRace WongRosanne WongAnson LeungJiney is a talented student of Arts with a trauma in her childhood and lack of communication with her mother, and excellent photographer that is not satisfied with her awarded works. When she witnesses a car crash, she is driven by a morbid wish and takes pictures of the dead victim. She becomes obsessed with death, and her close friend Jas feels that Jiney needs help with her abnormal behavior and attraction. When Jiney supersedes her death wish, she receives a snuff video where a girl is tortured and killed in front of the camera. Jiney shows the tape to Jas, who questions the authenticity of the footage, and they believe it is a prank of their friend Anson. When the girls realize that it is not a joke of Anson, Jiney receives another tape with the message inviting her to take a look. When she sees the tape, she becomes scared with the sinister footage.7/10
The main female protagonist is indeed beautiful. And she is abnormal. Why don't more movie titles deliver what they promise? A gorgeous (though a little too skinny) lesbian art student finds out she is attracted by death, or to be more precise the moment of it. As her morbid fascination grows, we find out her psychological profile, i.e. why she is as screwed up as she is. The director sets up the stage for a female serial-killer.
However, there are almost two movies in this. The first half ends with her coming to terms with a traumatic episode from her childhood hence she leaves her perverse hobby behind her, and all seems to end happily. Obviously, no-one would fall for that one, 45 minutes being still left. Suddenly, the movie's serial-killer makes an entrance. Is it the guy who's in love with her? Is it maybe even her? The chicken-butcher (that was my guess)? Her mother even? No. The killer is the guy who sold her the books on death in the store. Was this convincing? Not really, but at least it was a surprise, for whatever it's worth. The scene in which she faces her tormentor in the torture chamber isn't very credible, either. On one hand, the killer has shown to be very capable and sly, and yet, in the dungeon he behaves as if he were a Leatherface-like retard straight out of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
Still, in spite of its flaws, the film isn't as superficial as many other horror films, the first half being more in the psychological horror vein, although the last third does fall into the "mainstream" sadistic-sicko genre. It's never boring, and the lead female is interesting and beautiful. How is it Japanese/Chinese films nearly always have a great-looking woman in the lead, while American films are perpetually stuck with uglies/mediocrities like Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Drew Barrymore, La Lopez, or Jennifer Aniston? - DirectorJee-woon KimStarsLim Soo-jungYum Jung-ahKim Kap-suAfter being institutionalized in a mental hospital, Su-mi reunites with her sister, Su-yeon, and they return to live at their country home. But strange events plague the house, leading to surprising revelations and a shocking conclusion.Am I dumb or is it the movie's ending?
4/10
More like "A Muddled Tale Of Utter Confusion". Or "Yet Another Asian Tale Of A Long-Haired Zombie Woman/Girl Appearing Out Of The Furniture". Do we need more dead Asian girls walking slowly with their faces covered with black hair? Come on! That shtick is getting old, everyone! Funnily enough, those scenes aren't even that bad. The style and the acting is quite solid, the mood is okay, but The main problem is the plot, which is as confusing as any I've seen in many years. Not nearly as absurd i.e. dumb and unsolvable as for example "Lost Highway", but not far from it either. From the point we find out that the older(?) sister is imagining her long-dead sister, things get incomprehensible. The moment of finding this out is good, but it's downhill from there. What follows is a series of scenes that, though at least effective and not boring, pile on the confusion to the point when one simply gives up on the plot.
There is a certain line that can be blurred between reality and fantasy/hallucination, but that line isn't so much blurred here as it's simply crushed, obliterated. Who is seeing whom? Who is doing what and when? Who exists and who doesn't? Who is looking at what and why? It's just a jumble. This is supposed to be based on an old Korean tale. Let's just hope traditional Korean tales aren't this confusing but are only told in such a way. At one point the stepmother says "how did it come to this?", and I was thinking "come to what?!... what the hell is going on?!". In the end we find out how the mother and the sister died, and the way the latter dies was very silly indeed. Even sillier was how the stepmother reacts to this accident namely by not telling anyone! Sorry, that is too stupid The cupboard falls on the girl, and stepmom just walks out? - DirectorBanjong PisanthanakunParkpoom WongpoomStarsAnanda EveringhamNatthaweeranuch ThongmeeAchita SikamanaA young photographer and his girlfriend discover mysterious shadows in their photographs after a tragic accident. They soon learn that you can not escape your past.More dead Asian girls with long hair coming your way...
7/10
This is not a Chinese or Japanese horror film, but it is Thai, so why was I even surprised that I yet again watched yet another dead Asian girl with long hair crawling around and spooking the main characters? Plot-wise, the Asian horror genre seems to be stuck in a rut. The films are either about a dead girl with long hair or a dead woman with long hair, not much else. Guys, it's time to come up with something new! However, I don't know why, but again they got away with it. In spite of the fact that this idea has been milked dry (and then some), I found this film fun. It wasn't dull, the acting was solid, and there were some well-devised scenes. I particularly liked the idea of the main male protagonist carrying the dead girl on his back, especially the last scene - in the lunatic asylum is clever. But will someone explain to me how this guy could have survived not one but TWO falls off a building? You've got to give Asian horror films credit. They take a cliché idea and make it work yet again. This is in stark contrast to US horror films which tend to be incredibly dull when they deal with overused themes, like ghosts and vampires. - DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsKô ShibasakiShin'ichi TsutsumiKazue FukiishiPeople mysteriously start receiving voicemail messages from their future selves, foretelling their deaths.One Missed Ringu.
4/10
How many centuries will pass until the Japanese/Asian horror films abandon the long-haired ghost-woman shtick? Admittedly, they've managed to rip off "Ringu" a million times, and often it worked well - which just goes to show that originality isn't that much of a requirement in the horror genre (or that I'm very uncritical and easy to please?). However, this time around I found myself a little restless, somewhat bored. It's not a bad film, but it's at least half-an-hour longer than it should be, with its absurd 110 minutes length. Compared to many other Japanese horror films, OMC lacks atmosphere and excitement. Plus, the ending is confusing: it makes no sense at all. As for the ring-tone: Miike could have come up with a melody that is more effective than that forgettable little thing. Even though it was played a dozen times I can't even remember it - that's how scary it was. Speaking of Miike, for him this is something of a commercial venture, so if anyone thinks they might be getting perversion of the "Bijita Q" or "Audition" kind, they're wasting their time. - DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsMaksim MunzukYuriy SolominMikhail BychkovThe Russian army sends an explorer on an expedition to the snowy Siberian wilderness where he makes friends with a seasoned local hunter.7/10
The photography is good, occasionally terrific even, and the casting is impeccable, especially of the title character. The relationship between the two guys, who are very likable, seems genuine and not overly sentimental. It's a breath of fresh air to occasionally get away from American movies and watch something different.
Now to the negative side. As is typical with many non-American or non-British movies, everything moves too slowly often. The early parts of both sections (1902 and 1907) have scenes that are simply dull. Americans have understood and learned early on that a movie cannot be told in "real time" or anywhere close to it. Only relevant moments/scenes should be in the final cut. Story-telling in a movie cannot be like that in a novel, not even close. Kurosawa is nowhere nearly the kind of pretentious, almost useless director like Bergman, but he does make some of the same mistakes. Who wants to watch a group of soldiers walk for 3 minutes without any dialogue or anything at all relevant occurring? This kind of slow-paced tool can be justified only when it serves to build up suspense or when the scene is extraordinarily beautiful (see Kubrick). - DirectorKiyoshi KurosawaStarsHaruhiko KatôKumiko AsôKoyukiTwo groups of people discover evidence that suggests spirits may be trying to invade the human world through the Internet.Printo Screenki.
9/10
I'm a jaded horror-movie fan, hence approximately once in a blue moon do I get to watch a film from this genre that has me glued to the screen rather than bored or sneering/almost laughing at the gore when I'm not supposed to. But perhaps that was the key here, the essential ingredient - or rather the lack of it: the fact that there is no gore. Just like in the Japanese "Ringu", the eeriness comes out of what is insinuated rather than catchup-stained limbs flying through rooms as if they had wings. "Kairo" remains interesting in spite of its 2-hour length, although a little editing snip here or there might have made it a little more compact. The dialogue is mostly standard, i.e. not that interesting (with some exceptions), so it's the ghost scenes that elevate this movie above 98% of the usual horror crap. The story is slightly muddled (or were my subtitles bad?) but it matters not. "Kairo" shows once again why the Japanese (or Orientals in general) have an upper hand in the genre in recent years.
And even if you disliked it: it still beats watching a Stephen King or Wes Craven film, doesn't it? Plus, Japanese actresses are so much better-looking than the increasingly ugly, masculine blonds Hollywood serves us lately...
"Printo screenki": this is how one male character referred to a certain computer-keyboard feature... - DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsRyo IshibashiEihi ShiinaTetsu SawakiA widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all."Deepuku, deepuku... Hee-hee-hee..."
5/10
Previously, I only saw Miike's "Visitor Q", which was bizarre shock-'em-any-way-you-can nonsense (and a very milk-orientated movie), and "One Missed Call", which was mostly dull and far weaker than similar Japanese horror films. "Audition" finally gave me a glimpse into Miike's much-touted abilities. The way he sets up the pace/story is very effective. However, the movie ends in an over-the-top absurdist ultra-sadistic "Hostel"/"Saw"-like finale (admittedly before those two movies ever existed) that makes out Shiina to be some kind of a demon from the lowest reaches of Japanese hell. Either that, or she's Doctor Mengele's finest student - his absolute pride and joy.
Where did Shiina get the know-how to amputate fingers, feet, and even tongues(!) while managing to preserve the life of her victim-patient? Top surgeons lose patients due to infections or even blood loss when they amputate on people in a sterile, hospital environment. Where the hell does she get all that material from, including the various rare drugs/anesthetics/whatever? Do they sell paralyzing concoctions at every street corner in Nippon? Did Shiina study chemical biology along with her ballet? And finally, can a person really live off vomit for an entire year, while being wrapped up in a mail-bag? I'll have to assume that Shiina is as thin as she is because of the way she sacrifices her food to her human prison pet, the poor molested ballet-dancing darling...
Whether these absurdities are an issue in evaluating this movie depends on how one chooses to look at it. If one opts to regard this as a fantasy horror then all of this matters not. The problem is, for more than half the movie Miike sets up an eerie, intelligent story based in reality - then suddenly pulls out a "Fatal Attraction" ending when the movie explodes into gore and sadistic perversion. Naturally, Miike does this very stylishly, bringing in something new, whereas the said movie has a finale that was merely retarded cliché garbage (plus, Close is so damn ugly...).
Still, "Audition" will leave you with images that are truly memorable, and I don't just mean the grand "deepuku, deepuku" finale. The brief, early scenes of Shiinu just sitting in her apartment doing nothing are excellent. Less is often more; no need to have someone screaming to create suspense.
The brief it-was-just-a-dream intermezzo at the end didn't fool me at all, but it was worth a try... - DirectorMasaki KobayashiStarsRentarô MikuniMichiyo AratamaMisako WatanabeA collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.Eerie, very atmospheric, but also very monotonous in stretches: and not Kubrick-slow, just dull-slow.
7/10
It's quite obvious that this movie is more about style than content. The four stories, which cannot be connected to each other in any meaningful way, are for the most part predictable and uneventful. However, the feel of the movie is like that from another planet, and this, along with the effective use of music and nice visuals, is the reason to see it. The first story was so excruciatingly dull that I gave up on watching the movie, only to came back to it several months later. The ending was worth it: a very strange use of sounds, the finale was almost made like a silent film - and this goes for several other sequences in the other stories as well.
The first story lasts 35 minutes, but could have easily been told in half that time. This is the main problem with the first three stories. Good visuals are one thing, but an almost total lack of story development should never be excused by this. Who says quality/"high-brow" movies have to be slow in order to be recognized as "art"? The ending, as I mentioned, makes up somewhat for the total monotony. The second story, "Woman In The Snow", is the most effective, with an eerie beginning, a solid ending and terrific visual quality. Sure, one can make fun of the story that ends by the "vampire queen" lecturing/threatening the woodcutter that he'd better behave himself regarding their three kids, lest she delivers her promise of a swift blood-sucking execution. She tells him that if the kids ever complain about him, his life won't be worth a dime. Here's a scene they may have been cut out which would clarify this matter somewhat
Woodcutter: "Just exactly what constitutes a child's 'complaint', oh Wife who art nothing but a mere bloodsucking fraud?" Vampira: "Ehm... I haven't thought of that..." Woodcutter: "I mean, our youngest is 3 years old! What if he moans that I haven't given him enough candy?? Is that a death-sentence for me then?" Vampira: "Well, I guess that would depend on how loud he complains, I suppose..." Woodcutter: "How loud?... So should I have an instrument that measures the decibel level of his complaints, or are you talking about the frequency with which he might rant about his candy?" Vampira: "You're quite fresh for a humanoid who was only inches away from getting killed 10 years ago and - I might add - now, too!" Woodcutter: "Oh, come on... You won't kill me. If you did, that would upset the kids, and you obviously love them." Vampira: "Yes, my dumb husband, but my leaving them will upset them too - and yet I AM leaving!" Woodcutter: "That's another point! Your departure will make them depressed hence more irritable hence the chance of them complaining about me will increase!" Vampira: "...So...?" Woodcutter: "But that's not fair!" Vampira: "LIFE isn't fair - especially in Medieval fantasy Japan." Woodcutter: "Tell you what... Let's make a deal, a fair arrangement..." Vampira: "Shoot." Woodcutter: "Allow me to have one complaint per year from each child. If I go over that limit, you can suck out all my blood." Vampira: "It's a deal." Woodcutter: "Better yet: why don't you stay? Me and the kids can provide you with blood. You can suck ours! Half a liter from each of us, every three months (so our bodies' blood picture can recover), how's that sound?" Vampira: "Hm... That's four persons providing me with 2 liters a year... 8 liters! That's almost two full-frown adults: that's pretty much how many I need to kill annually. Not bad!" Woodcutter: "I love you." Vampira: "Ditto."
Or something like that...
For some reason most people state that the third story, "Hoichi The Earless", is their favourite. While it does have its moments, this is the longest story (clocking in at over an hour) and by far the dullest. It could have been told in half an hour. I presume that the monotony increases the "artistic level" in some people's minds, hence they claim how much they love it. (Unwritten rule for movie-"art" lovers: "Always be impressed by dull, overly long sequences in movies. They are so "deep", because they give oneself enough time to switch off from the movie in order to think about the depth of life and the human condition.") The last story, the shortest one (25 minutes), starts off well but has a conclusion that is a bit confusing.
If you're looking for an early- or mid-60s movie, try this one. Hollywood was still making fluff at the time... - DirectorTakeshi FurusawaStarsErika SawajiriChinatsu WakatsukiShun OguriOn her way to school, high school girl Nana sees a train accident. Then Nana and her friend Kanae start to come across various bizarre phenomena, including red fingerprints and a female spirit who 'lives' on the station platform. One day, Nana's younger sister is lost, and the only possibility seems to be that she had been taken by these spirits. The missing tracks. The predictions that a mysterious woman makes.If your bracelet ever gives you trouble - make sure you don't ask for professional help.
4/10
et another Japanese horror flick about a LONG-HAIRED FEMALE GHOST slaughtering people. Once the Japanese get stuck on a shtick, they never ever let go, do they. It's a shame, because there are talented directors in the Land of The Rising Long-Haired Female Ghosts, but the scripts tend to be nearly always clones of one another. After all, the Japanese aren't known for originality.
You gotta love the Japanese though. A girl has just inadvertently killed her own boyfriend (who had attacked her, because possessed by a ghost), and what do her parents do upon picking her up from the police station? They berate her for not taking her school seriously enough. You'd never see this in a Western movie, which is just one of the many reasons why Japanese films are so weird.
A bracelet won't come off – AND your wrist is turning purple and blue underneath it? Ever thought about going to an emergency room? Whether this is a dumb aspect of a badly written film or perhaps something closely related to Japanese culture, I simply don't know. Perhaps it would have been "shameful" for the teeny-bopper to have gone to a doctor "just" for a stuck bracelet and a hand that looks as if it's in advanced stages of gangrene. After all, what's amputation compared to the loss of "face"? What's a little limb-loss compared to being shunned? Meanwhile, the train-station guard is busy covering up all his knowledge about the ghost – just so he can have his crappy job back. It's not as if though he is trying to get back a job as a CEO or something, but as a train-driver, so his stubbornness and unwillingness to help the girls solve the mystery of a fast-climbing number of disappearances (including kids, no less) hits a distinct "duh" note for me. Again, perhaps this is just a Japanese thing: career and social status take precedence over human life, I just don't know.
Eventually, the former train-driver not only joins the effort to solve the mystery, but actually blows up the entrance to Hell (or whatever it is), thinking that this way he'd solved the problem. But did he? Once that station is cleared up of all the rubble (and knowing Japanese expediency, it wouldn't take long) there is no reason why construction workers won't be finding that demonic "entrance" again. Which brings us to the possibility of a sequel. Is there one? I'm not interested.
The BFF sub-plot about the blossoming – and very sudden – friendship between the female protagonist (an awful actress, BTW) and the bracelet-hating teenie-bopper is utterly stupid and completely out-of-place, and comes off as an intrusion perpetrated by a neighbouring teen-drama movie-set. - DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsKimiko IkegamiMiki JinboKumiko ÔbaA schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt's country home, which turns out to be haunted.If John Waters were Japanese.
3/10
If John Waters were Japanese, had some talent, was obsessed with "Wizard of Oz"-like visuals, and decided to make a horror film - this is how it would look. (Aside from the fact that his version would have seven boys instead of girls.) Then again, I insult "Hausu" by even bringing up a name synonymous with crap. In fact, I insult ANY movie (apart from his own - and Rob Zombie's) by bringing his dung-reminding name in connection with it, in any way. So out of respect for this movie's creators, I will refrain from mentioning the unfunny dilettante again in this text.
For all the dope users out there, trust me when I tell you that you don't need to get high to feel as if you're high when watching "Hausu". It has a very basic plot, but glued around it is a plethora of weird goings-on which occur in quick succession. Seven Japanese school-girls are being tormented by a cannibalistic hermit witch. That's just the basic premise, which almost takes a backseat to the occasionally striking visuals, the bizarre choice of music, the hodge-podge editing, the very cheesy special-effects, and all-round Oriental cheerfulness. A horror comedy, but if you think this might be anything like "Shaun of the Dead", think again. This is weird cinema, first-and-foremost, and a horror comedy second. There are vague similarities to "Evil Dead 2" (which came later), but even ED2 seems conventional by comparison. The wild editing occasionally throws the movie into a state of near-chaos, which only amplifies the film's dream-like feel.
One of the seven girls, called "Mac" because of her "stoMACH" i.e. Her love of food, is referred to as "chubby" in spite of the plain-as-day fact that she has the build every Western woman would die for. She's the "fat one" in the group, but I struggled to see why. The only explanation I have is that the Japanese have (or at least had, in the 70s) so few obese people that 3 grams of extra fat was enough to get you labeled as "chubby".
Which brings me to the essential problem in "Hausu". When Mac disappears, the other girls only show limited concern, and even forget about her the next day entirely! If the characters don't care that they might be in peril i.e. Being killed off one-by-one, then why should the viewer care? Even comedies have to have an iota of realism, otherwise whatever little plot there is becomes utterly irrelevant. Besides, the humour is more suitable for young children than adults, in spite of the cannibalistic theme, a severed head, some nudity and other un-kiddie-like traits.
The movie makes no sense on any level, and the characters are beyond cardboard cut-outs; practically none of them can be taken seriously even as cartoon characters. Even Bugs Bunny seems like Winston Churchill next to these girls. Even when the girls find Mac's severed hand, they scream for about a second-and-a-half but are back to their cheerful ways pretty soon thereafter. Meanwhile, the girls' teacher seems to exist in a movie/story parallel to the girls', in some sort of totally unfunny slapstick Benny Hill sub-plot that serves no purpose nor even connects to the main plot in any meaningful way.
This overly silly flick ultimately overstays its welcome by at least half-an-hour. The horror elements don't work at all, the "gags" are all unfunny (because far too childish; "Sesame Street" is more adult), and the weirdness bonus peters out eventually. The gradual disintegration of "Hausu" is an inevitable result of focusing only on creating bizarre cinema, at the expense of following some very basic ground-rules of film-making.
21:00: "It's as if we were in another world!" says one of the girls. Just by being Japanese, all of you are in a different world; that much is certain.
22:00: The fat melon vendor talks exactly like Jabba the Hutt. I'll be damned if Lucas didn't model the lard-assed alien after him. - DirectorKôji ShiraishiStarsEriko SatôHaruhiko KatôChiharu KawaiA suburban town in Japan is the victim of what is supposedly just an urban legend, a woman's spirit with a horribly disfigured face who is intent on kidnapping children for unknown reasons.Not so much a plot as a large piece of Swiss cheese.
4/10
Bland direction that doesn't allow for suspense, plus there's a sleazy, exploitation-like child-torturing premise. Muddled plot full of logic holes.
If demon-frau promised not to kill her son if he got rid of her, then why does she kill him anyway decades later? How the hell did demon-frau kill two of her kids without the authorities noticing that they were missing from school? Does Japan have no Social Services, or is it normal there for kids to come to school continually bruised and beaten without anyone taking any measures to protect them? Why does Mika's mother just push demon-frau to the side and then turn her back to her to be then very predictably - and stupidly - killed? Why does everyone move in extreme slow-motion once they enter the murderess's lair? How come some of the victims are found wandering the city - how the hell did they escape? How come they escaped but Mika - who was cutting herself loose - didn't? Why didn't the demon-frau's son report to the police what he knew?
I am always fascinated how much less critical (horror) fans are of non-English-speaking horror films. If this were an American film, it would be almost uniformly trashed for its glaring flaws. Somehow American (horror) films are held to higher standards (not counting the hyped big-studio films with fake reviews and swarm-voting), more nit-picked on, while non-American ones are forgiven even when they're blatantly stupid or mediocre. - DirectorPil-sung YimStarsSong Kang-hoYoo Ji-taeKyeong-ik KimStrange things begin happening to an expedition deep in the Antarctic.Because it's there.
6/10
Six Korean adventurers are on a mission to reach some obscure point in the Antarctic. Why? Because it's there. Look, I never understood it myself, this need to go to the balls-freezing testicles-frosticles poles or to be at "the top of the world". Leo DiCrapio was on top of the world WITHOUT having to climb Everest, right? If that little wimp (sorry, DJANGO tough guy) can do it, then even his Dusseldorf granny can.
Several days into the mission, a weird little alien (?) eye peeks out of the food they're eating. A few days later, a big elephant/creature/whatever eye sits in a crevice, staring at the luckless schmuck that fell into it right after attacking the annoying glasses-wearing nerd. (What's a nerd doing on a polar expedition?). Both those scenes are early on in AJ, setting the viewer up for a supernatural horror mystery. Or?
Think again. This could have been yet another drama about a man's descent into madness, had they taken out those two scenes, and perhaps one or two others that carry supernatural implications. For some strange reason, AJ (no relation to the putz from that boy band) almost completely neglects the supernatural in the second half, focusing instead solely on the "Captain" and the very obvious fact that he'd lost all of his marbles at some point.
Well, at least it should have been obvious – though not to the remaining three team-members. For whatever reasons, they kept following his suicide-mission orders with a minimum of fuss or skepticism until it was (predictably) too late. The act of cutting off the rope holding one of their team-members hanging in the crevice: that alone should have sounded alarm bells in their polar-exploring/snow-loving heads, not to mention his subsequent behaviour (half of which would have been enough to land him in a loony bin for a lengthy period of time). The way that actor plays the Captain - it should have been plain as day that he'd gone insane, and yet these other guys only reach agreement on this piece of bleedin'-obvious trivia once they arrive at the British hut. Perhaps this is a Korean thing, dunno, to be loyal to your superior(s) until the bitter end. That would certainly help explain the almost unique phenomenon of North Koreans not putting up much resistance against one of the harshest tyrannies in human history, whereas that same government would have been brought down a long time ago in any European country – and I mean ANY. (Not even the Russians would have tolerated it.) The way they all follow "Captain" into what is evidently a pointless suicide mission might be therefore more logical, or at least more familiar, to Korean viewers. I am not having a go at Koreans, but merely speculating.
It is a pity that the source of Captain's insanity wasn't explored more. Merely suggesting that "Antarctica drove him mad", or that his kid fell from the 14th floor many years ago, is not good enough. The parallels to the fate of the 1922 British expedition, the journal, the hallucinations, and of course the two bizarre eyes: all of these are just much-too-small parts in a much larger puzzle which the movie simply won't allow us to put together, or to at least know where to begin. I don't think that a movie of this kind should either serve us ALL of the answers on a plate as if treating the viewers like a bunch of avatards, nor do I believe that the vagueness should go too far in the other direction. The brilliance of movies that strike a balance – a fine line – between these two extremes cannot be overstated. Clearly, AJ has failed in this. Perhaps it was lazy writing, perhaps it was a lack of ideas how to resolve the movie's grand enigma, or perhaps the writer thought that utter confusion would eventually lead the viewer into some kind of a deep Buddhist trance that would help make all of this comprehensible on some deeper religious or (and I absolutely detest using this word) spiritual (yuck) level.
Ultimately, AJ's strengths lie in the beautiful landscapes, the mood, the solid soundtrack, the several fairly memorable scenes, and the sense of mystery. The slow pace will definitely put off avatards and other jamesocameronian riff-raff, but I didn't feel as if there was any tedium. The letdown, as is so often the case, is that the mystery was just a paper-tiger, a parlor trick, a gimmick to keep you interested for the duration. The movie has no real conclusion; it's far too open for interpretation, as open as the pooka of a 59 year-old prostitute, i.e. too vague to make any sense - apart from any subjective drivel that any ambitious/hopeful viewer might very pretentiously/optimistically/deludedly offer as an explanation. Looking forward to reading the other comments here for the usual silly theories!
A solid try, but next time more work should go into the script and the basic premise. Perhaps injecting a POINT to everything might help. AJ does not have an open ending – it has NO ending. You can't go off into too many directions within the framework of one single story. Take one direction and run with it. Or walk slowly with it through snow; that works too. - DirectorPeter Ho-Sun ChanJee-woon KimNonzee NimibutrStarsLeon LaiKim Hye-suJeong Bo-seokAn anthology consisting of three horror shorts from different Asian directors: Memories by Kim Jee-woon, The Wheel by Nonzee Nimibutr, and Going Home by Peter Chan.Be patient, for the last story.
The Korean story: 5/10
Atmospheric but also slow, and with a blah ending. It turns out he murdered his wife because she cheated on him? It isn't entirely clear whether she did, but even so, what kind of a stupid ending is that? And where is the revenge part? Plays like an abandoned, half-finished script.
The Thai story: 4/10
Visually totally bland, with a story that falls neatly into the yet-another-evil-puppet-revenge-story category. Or not so much revenge as a curse this time around. A highly unoriginal premise executed clumsily and fairly dull as well.
The Hong Kong story: 8/10
Easily the best story, although I can't say I understood it completely. So why did the boy disappear, and did he get killed? If so, by whom? By the little girl? Why would she do that? The girl is obviously the ghost of the fetus the doctor couple decided to abort, or is it? The photo shop is some kind of a stepping-stone just before Heaven or Hell where the newly dead people have their pictures taken - at least that's how interpret it - but again we come back to the question of the boy's disappearance. It is OK to have a lingering mystery i.e. To not have every aspect of the story fully clarified, but not leaving the viewer even a tiny hint is a bit weak. Nevertheless, a highly original plot. - DirectorHideo NakataStarsNanako MatsushimaMiki NakataniYûko TakeuchiA reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.9/10
- DirectorHideo NakataStarsMiki NakataniHitomi SatôKyôko FukadaReiko takes Yôichi into hiding when her son begins to display frightening powers. Meanwhile, Mai Takano and the authorities begin a desperate search for them, as the mysterious Ring curse spreads.
- DirectorHideo NakataStarsHitomi KurokiRio KannoMirei OguchiA mother and her 6-year-old daughter move into a creepy apartment whose every surface is permeated by water.5/10
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneMinoru ChiakiIsuzu YamadaA war-hardened general, egged on by his ambitious wife, works to fulfill a prophecy that he would become lord of Spider's Web Castle.
- DirectorHerman YauStarsAnthony Chau-Sang WongYeung-Ming WanFui-On ShingA Chinese restaurant worker wanted for murder in Hong Kong contracts Ebola in South Africa, becomes immune to it, and unknowingly spreads the virus there, then comes back to Hong Kong and continues to infect people with it.1/10
- DirectorByeong-ki AhnStarsHa Ji-WonKim Yu-miWoo-jae ChoiInvestigative reporter Ji-won begins to receive a series of menacing calls. To escape the terrifying and relentless clanging of the telephone, she changes her number and moves out. But the threatening campaign of terror continues unabated.5/10