Reviews

This period melodrama portrays the descent of a basically caring person into a heartless, money-obsessed killer. The plot-heavy narrative is held together by Kazuko Wakasugi's passionate commitment to putting emotional flesh on the title character's bones. She went on to play the even more tragic Iwa in 'Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan'.

Director Nakagawa keeps things moving at a brisk enough pace to gloss over the story's improbabilities. Continuing to experiment with his visuals, he includes an unusually large number of high-angle shots, suggesting the powerlessness of the main characters.

Although not one of the director's best films, 'Dokufu' is still an above-average entry in its genre.

And who can fault Iwa's fury? Her husband Iemon murders her father to marry her, deceives her into parting from her sister, fathers her child, pays another man to seduce her, then administers a disfiguring poison so he can marry another woman. Yet Iemon is not wholly wicked - he suffers pangs of conscience, and most of his crimes are the result of his servant's goading. Whilst our sympathy goes to Iwa, our empathy extends to Iemon. The film is endowed with the dimensions of a classical tragedy, as the director undoubtedly intended. In fact, the picture's opening scenes are unabashedly stage-bound, before it shifts subtly into an engrossing cinematic experience. Although the story has been adapted to film many times in Japan, this is generally considered the definitive version.

Besides its dramatic power, this version of Ghost Story of Yotsuya is visually sumptuous and thrillingly scored, the scope compositions are masterly, and the female phantom's appearance is truly nightmarish.

This is easily the most accomplished, frightening and satisfying of Nakagawa's period ghost stories.

Although unusually elaborate in some of its set pieces, The Ceiling at Utsunomiya is similar to many chambara films of its period. However, it's the first of Nobuo Nakagawa's movies to include a ghost (albeit very briefly), and introduces several of the devices the director was to repeat in later films as he became more involved in supernatural tales, such as snakes, bloody head wounds, facial disfigurement, vengeful spirits, an ambivalent attitude towards samurai and lengthy tracking shots.

You wouldn't know this film was made by Nobuo Nakagawa if the credits didn't say so. Apart from a brief flashback-within-a-flashback, the setting is contemporary, and the director seems at a loss to create tempo, suspense or atmosphere. The visual characteristics honed during his first three ghost films are almost completely absent - no lateral tracking shots, no lengthy takes, no dimming light levels. There's only one spooky sequence (a servant carrying a candle through a darkened house, responding to a summons from a room that's been unoccupied 20 years), and a small handful of innovatively-filmed shots (all involving mirrors). Particularly disappointing is the climax - far too drawn out and very clumsily edited.

Despite all these drawbacks, there are a few points worth noting. This was the first Japanese horror movie to be set in modern times. It was also the first film made in that country to feature a vampire as the protagonist, although this vampire is very different from the Western type. Finally, much of the film has the same rather tawdry look as the cheap monochrome shockers produced in Europe during the early sixties, such as Seddok and Lycanthropus, which is remarkable, considering it was made in 1958.

Vampire Woman is certainly an atypical entry in Nakagawa's filmography around this time.

The Mansion of the Ghost Cat shows the misdeeds of a prior generation not only bringing suffering and death to that generation's members, but also threatening their blameless descendants. Ghosts are put to rest only when the misdeeds are brought to light and treated properly. In the context of post-war Japanese society (a `house' haunted by the past), the message of Nobuo Nakagawa's third ghost film is hard to ignore.

Viewed simply as a ghost story, the film includes several creepy sequences. In a darkened hospital corridor, a sheet-draped body is wheeled silently by a masked figure. During the first visit to the derelict mansion, a woman with a shock of white hair is glimpsed churning butter. A wall disintegrates at the height of a thunderstorm, revealing an alcove, and a rotting corpse slowly topples out. Unfortunately, much of the sinister atmosphere dispels whenever the cat spirit itself appears, particularly when its furry ears pop up.

The film is structured differently from any of Nakagawa's previous work. The opening and closing sections have a contemporary setting and are acted naturalistically. The lengthy middle section is set in the previous century and presented more impressionistically, once again showing the strong influence on the director of kabuki theatre. Unusually, the flashback is filmed in colour, and is therefore more vivid than the modern-day monochromatic bookends.

Nakagawa seems to have seized on the opportunity for technical experimentation, too, although not always successfully. This is the first film he made in scope, but the compositions rarely take full advantage of the broader screen. More effective is the use of colour, with pastel shades predominating for costumes and settings, in order to heighten the dramatic impact of the sudden appearance of blood. A number of sequences try out dramatic lighting effects, such as the dimming of the light level just before ghosts appear and the use of silhouettes. Towards the end of the middle section, there's a montage sequence that's Nakagawa's first attempt to use editing for dramatic effect. And, of course, he continues to experiment with the innovative and sometimes startling camera moves that characterize all his films.

The Mansion of the Ghost Cat represents the director's evolution to a more sophisticated level of filmmaking, both in theme and technique. It contains the seeds that would later blossom into his most famous work, Jigoku.

The dead are indeed vengeful in Nobuo Nakagawa's second period ghost drama. Not content with tricking his murderer into killing his wife and stumbling to a watery death, the prologue's blind victim brings about the tortured demise of his own daughter so that she can haunt his murderer's innocent son. Then the blind victim returns in the flesh, as it were, to personally finish off the samurai who kills the son. Along the way, the ghost engineers jealousy, deceit, despair, attempted rape and mutilation to achieve his ends.

The Ghosts of Kasane includes several elements that would resurface 2 years later in the same director's The Ghost of Yotsuya, the two most notable being the similarity in the appearance of the two ghosts in each film, and the somewhat stylized presentation, adapted from Japan's kabuki theatre. This earlier work is not as accomplished as Yotsuya in its atmosphere, performances and visual effects, but still manages some scary moments. Amongst the most original is the way in which we're eventually shown Rui's disfigurement. There's also the director's preference already in evidence for mobile camerawork, elaborate sets and a powerful score.

Although only in the second rank of Nobuo Nakagawa's films, The Ghosts of Kasane is a good introduction to his style and to the venerable tradition of Japanese ghost stories.

Joker, a computer game designer, falls in love with Ling, the bartender on whom he's modeling Princess D, the cyber heroine in his latest digital adventure. Initially bemused by the designer's interest in her, Ling is gradually drawn towards the fantasy world created by Joker for his game as a welcome relief from the grim reality of her dysfunctional family.

In portraying that grim reality, the film stands apart from traditional romances, but is careful to avoid becoming distastefully sordid. Ling sells drugs at the disco where she works, but does so only to free her younger brother from debt to a gangster. Her father is a criminal, but treats his distracted wife with sensitivity and tenderness during her visits to his prison. Her mother's distraction doesn't prevent her from unexpectedly saving her daughter from arrest.

The grimness is also alleviated by flashes of whimsy and humour. When a fly is swatted, a transparent ghost fly emerges from its crushed body and buzzes away. An ICQ exchange is portrayed by superimposing the participants' messages like subtitles, and ends with a cartoon emerging from the computer screen to blow a raspberry. An infatuated girl signals her feelings by presenting the object of her affection with a navel ring.

Helping to sell the unusual cocktail is an appealing cast of young and personable actors with good support from such veterans as Pat Ha (after a 10-year absence from movies) and Anthony Wong (who's never looked more trim and graceful).

Visually, the film adopts whatever style best suits each scene's needs, but without ever seeming derivative. The more edgy and frenetic scenes are particularly impressive when you consider the quite traditional previous work of director Sylvia Chang and cinematographer Pin Bing Lee.

The complex characters, dark back-story and whimsical touches combine to make PRINCESS D an engaging and original contribution to the romance genre.

From the team that brought us the outrageous prison drama STORY OF RICKY comes an equally bizarre science-fiction movie. It isn't ashamed to "borrow" ideas from sources as diverse as CALTIKI, THE TERMINATOR, THE BLOB and THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT. The result is certainly lively and - if you're in the right frame of mind - quite entertaining.

The story concerns three visitors from another solar system whose mission on earth is to destroy "the star-killer", an amorphous Lovecraftian creature that absorbs and can re-animate its human victims. The trio is seeking two relics displayed in terrestrial museums. When joined together, the relics create an amplification device for a ray beamed from their home planet. Bathed in the amplified ray, one of the visitors - a black cat called The General - will be powerful enough to vanquish the monster.

The film's main attractions are its comely female cast members and some over-the-top action sequences. These include a junk yard battle between The General and a huge black mastiff that must be seen to be believed. There are also some quite graphic horror scenes, but the poor quality of the make-up effects mutes their impact.

Although it never attains the quality of the films it emulates, THE CAT is sufficiently fast-paced to hold our attention even while we laugh at its absurdities.

This is the first of more than 20 films featuring Ichi, a blind masseur-turned-swordsman in medieval Japan. Although he learned to wield a sword only to gain respect, Ichi finds his skill constantly in demand by criminal gangs. He's always reluctant to fight, and resorts to violence only with great reluctance and as a last resort. He prefers to make his living by practising his skills as a masseur and supplementing that income by conning greedy crooks who underestimate his gambling abilities.

In this first episode of a series that covered two decades, Ichi is hired by a gang leader to defeat a consumptive samurai who's been imported by a rival gang. The two swordsmen meet while fishing and become friends, but destiny has decreed they must fight each other, and only one will survive…

Fans of action movies may be disappointed with ZATOICHI MONOGATARI, because there's virtually no fighting for the movie's first hour. Instead, there's unusual emphasis on character development. Ichi himself receives much of the attention, and Shintaro Katsu (who also played the role in all the sequels) presents us with a subtle, complex portrayal of the reluctant mercenary. His scenes with the enamored sister of one of the gang members and with the mortally sick samurai are played with great sincerity without becoming sentimental. These two characters are also sensitively portrayed. Even many of the crooks are carefully established as individuals.

The climax won't disappoint action fans, though. Beginning with a flurry of gang skirmishes, frenetically edited to a throbbing score, it ends on a bitter and almost tragic note after the inevitable confrontation between the two protagonists.

Director Kenji Misumi embellishes the slow build-up with a succession of captivating black-and-white compositions and attention to period detail. A degree of pace is maintained by making scene transitions with cuts rather than dissolves. Sets are given visual depth by being framed with foreground objects. The camera is often positioned slightly above or below the characters' eye-lines. Very precise interior lighting creates interesting patterns on and around the actors. By contrast, the daytime exteriors are overly bright and tend to disrupt the mood.

Far from being a typical samurai movie, ZATOICHI MONOGATARI is an unusually somber yet effective period drama, and probably the best entry in the long series it inaugurated.

The second part of the ALL NIGHT LONG trilogy is a truly Sadean film. Every character is subjected to appalling humiliation and torture, inflicted for the gratification of the torturers. The only comparable Western picture is SALO O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA. But where Pier Paolo Pasolini's movie is a political allegory, writer-director Katsuya Matsumura focuses on his characters. He's interested in what drives them, why some are predators and others victims, and how certain victims ultimately become predators.

A gang's protection racket victimizes a high-school student with whom the gang leader becomes obsessed. The leader makes every effort to seduce the

student. When his advances are rebuffed, the leader tries to force the student into acts of degradation and violence. The student's friends are also captured and brutalized. The leader's efforts are finally successful: the student becomes every bit as savage as his tormentors.

ALL NIGHT LONG 2 is exceptionally graphic, with explicit and realistic depictions of every outrage, but what makes the movie so disturbing is the believability of the characters. All of the cast delivers powerful and convincing performances, although many of them (like most of the technical crew) didn't allow their real names to be used in the credits.

Certainly not for all audiences, OORU NAITO RONGU 2: SANJI is nonetheless seriously-intentioned, and amongst the most effective studies ever of the darkest recesses of humanity.

For his directorial debut, scriptwriter Hun-Su Park modernized a popular folklore tale about a fox woman who desperately wishes to become fully human. The result, GUMIHO (literally, fox girl), is an intriguing blend of romance, eroticism and fantasy, exquisitely photographed.

The tortured love of the beautiful Harah for handsome Hyuk is portrayed with unusual sensitivity for a fantasy film. Ironically, to become human, Harah must drain Hyuk of his life force. The conflict between this necessity and Harah's feelings for Hyuk create a strained relationship, except when they're making love. Western viewers are likely to recognize elements of Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE. Complicating things are the efforts of 69, a prisoner from hell who's been assigned to enslave Harah. The machinations of 69 and his human disciple to destroy the relationship provide enough comic relief to prevent the film becoming too somber.

Both young leads, in their first feature film starring roles, are attractive and have a subtle chemistry. Their scenes together are generally excellent.

Fantasy elements are quite accomplished. They include a depiction of hell as resembling a subway station with both humorous and horrific features, including buck-passing guards and an ornate tongue guillotine. Harah's transformations and fox-woman make-up are not specially remarkable, but her flying scenes are impressive. Her attacks on humans are restrained, but still gory.

The film's main fault is its length. The middle section, which contains several pointless scenes, would have benefited from more disciplined editing. Still, GUMIHO is a very promising debut for its director and stars.

This film is an attempt to revive the once-thriving Cambodian movie-making industry that was decimated by the Khmer Rouge government. Co-produced with Thailand, THE SNAKE KING'S CHILD is based on a folk tale about the child of a peasant woman and a snake god.

For westerners, the film's main attractions are visual. The cinematography is often striking, with atmospheric use of colour and shadow. All the characters wear eye-catching costumes. Actual Cambodian locations were used for many of the beautiful settings. Most memorable of all is Pich Chan Barmey's fabulous snake-hair effect, which easily outstrips any of the unconvincing attempts in western movies to portray gorgons.

Whether THE SNAKE KING'S CHILD will succeed in resurrecting Cambodian movie-making remains to be seen, but it certainly constitutes a promising start.

A letterboxed DVD, with rather eccentric English subtitles, has been released by Hong Kong's Winson Entertainment.

This South Korean thriller can't claim much originality in its basic story. A group of young adults are linked by a guilty secret from their college days. They start being haunted by visions of someone who was killed accidentally several years before, and begin dying violently themselves. The idea dates back to at least 1980 (PROM NIGHT), and more recently formed the basis for I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. But writer-director An Byung-ki, evidently familiar with Italian gialli, maintains interest by giving the plot a quite convoluted structure plus several bizarre twists and turns as the film progresses. The influence of Dario Argento is specially noticeable. Mr. An also invests the story with enough ambiguity that, until the last scene, we're not sure whether the vengeful ghost seen by the characters is for real or simply a projection of their guilt.

The young cast generally furnish convincing and underplayed performances. Particularly noteworthy are Kim Kyu-ri as a psychology major and Ha Ji-won as the film's enigmatic nemesis. The picture's mood of unease is greatly enhanced by imaginative lighting, smoothly gliding camerawork, sharp editing, and a varied but never intrusive score. KAWEE successfully continues South Korea's recent emergence as a new force in the psychological horror film sub-genre.

Westerners can catch this movie on VCD or DVD under the titles NIGHTMARE and HORROR GAME MOVIE. It's highly recommended.

This film has had a checkered history, to say the least. Adapted by director Gary Fleder's buddy Scott Rosenberg from a Philip Dick (BLADE RUNNER, TOTAL RECALL) short story, it was originally intended to be a 30-minute episode in a 1999 movie trilogy. The producers thought the concept could be expanded to a feature. At least four other writers worked at various times on developing the script for the longer version. Principal photography was completed almost two years ago. Dimension announced a succession of release dates, none of which proved to be accurate. A changed political climate in the entertainment industry led to re-shooting the more violent moments, and the toned-down version received a 'PG' rating from the MPAA instead of the 'R' rating it was first given.

The result, finally released, is a chaotically plotted futuristic remake of THE FUGITIVE. Gary Sinise plays a weapons designer in a world 80 years from now that's besieged by would-be invaders from Alpha Centauri. The aliens plan to assassinate Earth's leader using artificial humans with bombs planted inside their hearts. The weapons engineer is believed by Earth's security forces to be one of these assassins. Vincent D'Onofrio portrays the chief nemesis, relentlessly pursuing Mr. Sinise. Unfortunately, neither character is well enough written or acted to make much connection with the audience, so we don't really care what happens to them. Only Madeleine Stowe, playing Mr. Sinise's physician wife, attracts any empathy or interest.

The movie is shot in those monochromatic hues that have become commonplace in so many films. The action scenes are routinely staged, and so poorly photographed and disjointedly edited that we can't follow what's happening to whom most of the time. One positive element is the visual effects which, although used sparingly, are attractively designed and executed.

Given the source material and the cast, IMPOSTOR proves to be a big disappointment that was hardly worth the wait.

Although over 50 years' old, this film's wit and imagination have not dated. Two retired 18th-century British army officers accidentally kill themselves and are required to haunt their house in London's Berkeley Square until visited by reigning royalty. All their attempts over the next two centuries to lure the British monarch to the house fail. During that time, their home is occupied by a succession of colourful tenants, including a house of ill repute, an Indian rajah with his harem, a World War I soldiers' hospital and a World War II officers' club.

Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer as the quintessentially British ghosts are excellent. Their characters' witty repartee and dogged determination form the backbone of the movie. The supporting cast is equally good, containing a broad range of England's best character actors of the 1940's.

The sets and costumes are imaginatively rendered and true to the various historic periods covered by the story. The varied and imaginative musical score greatly helps set the mood of each era. Much of the cinematography is remarkable; a single-take lengthy crane shot very early in the film is particularly impressive. This is probably the best movie made by director Vernon Sewell, whose long career encompassed very little distinctive work.

This entertaining and well-made film is worthy of re-discovery.

This is an entertaining, well-made spy adventure set during World War I. Although made 60 years ago, the film has a sophisticated approach to the relationship between its three main characters. In particular, the natural attraction between the parts played by Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson is portrayed believably. Many of the supporting characters are also interesting; look out for Hay Petrie as the Scottish engineer aboard a ferry and an early appearance by Bernard Miles as a hotel desk clerk. Unlike the majority of British movies of this period, the film doesn't stereotype or make fun of its working-class characters.

The story has several good twists and an ironic climax. There are also some improbable coincidences, but no more than the typical James Bond movie.

Unlike Bond, however, "The Spy in Black" adopts a quite dark tone in its final 20 minutes. There is an almost tragic dignity and regret in the final scenes.

Director Michael Powell composes some interestingly-framed shots that make good use of Vincent Korda's sets. One of his favourite devices is to set a key character in sharp focus in the background while lesser parts stand or move slightly out-of-focus in the foreground. The effect is often quite striking.

This film marks Powell's first collaboration with the Hungarian writer Emeric Pressburger. The maturity of the romance between the leads and the snappiness of the dialogue are probably attributable to Pressburger's European upbringing.

Despite its age, "The Spy in Black" is well worth seeing just for the simple pleasures of a well-made entertainment executed with a little more care and imagination than usual.