I had the chance by shear luck to see both movies the American version in the theaters recently and the early Japanese version as soon as i got home (and would you believe the Japanese version started just as soon as i entered the door which was awesome in my favor). "One missed call" is another attempt at hacking a pretty decent and pretty damn nerve jolted J-horror movie and make it into another americanized, "one tree hill-ish" horror movie where the black chick dies within the first 5 minutes and the pretty white kids are left to figure out who is trying playing this dangerous game in telling the teens the date, time, and how they are going to die via voice mail...you can pretty much think of this version as, "Final destination 4: ONE MISSED CALL" which makes this movie an A-typical remake that doesn't really live up to Takashi Miike's version that was years before.
The acting in this movie is pretty much what you would expect in any typical horror that is on American shores....bland, expecting, and somewhat off in most cases. Now don't get me wrong....some movies that were Japanese based that comes here most are pretty good...but then you have some like this...and it makes you wonder. I'm a big fan of Takashi Miike's works right down to Koroshiya 1 (aka. Ichi the killer) and Audition (another one of my favorites)He makes the viewers guess what's coming after them instead of using CGI to over blow the spectacle of the climax; there are some cases where as one critic on here says, "Not knowing is a lot better than already knowing" which is true sometimes its good to not know who your enemy is in certain movies therefore it gives off the element of surprise right till the climax which in the Japanese version that did it perfectly....this version....not so much.
In the end, I had to give this movie a 4, nice attempt but when you have a director who has never seen the Japanese version and advised the actors to not see it to for research then you have all the makings of a nearly semi-bad movie and a semi-bad remake; my advice watch the Japanese version instead you might find that its version is slightly better and if you prefer the American version then to each it own...but it was just done poorly. sorry.
The acting in this movie is pretty much what you would expect in any typical horror that is on American shores....bland, expecting, and somewhat off in most cases. Now don't get me wrong....some movies that were Japanese based that comes here most are pretty good...but then you have some like this...and it makes you wonder. I'm a big fan of Takashi Miike's works right down to Koroshiya 1 (aka. Ichi the killer) and Audition (another one of my favorites)He makes the viewers guess what's coming after them instead of using CGI to over blow the spectacle of the climax; there are some cases where as one critic on here says, "Not knowing is a lot better than already knowing" which is true sometimes its good to not know who your enemy is in certain movies therefore it gives off the element of surprise right till the climax which in the Japanese version that did it perfectly....this version....not so much.
In the end, I had to give this movie a 4, nice attempt but when you have a director who has never seen the Japanese version and advised the actors to not see it to for research then you have all the makings of a nearly semi-bad movie and a semi-bad remake; my advice watch the Japanese version instead you might find that its version is slightly better and if you prefer the American version then to each it own...but it was just done poorly. sorry.